TUFTS  COLLEGE 

LIBRARY. 


THE   RISE 


THE  VIVISECTION  (MTBOVEBSY 


a  Chapter  of  1bi$ton> 


ALBERT  LEFFINGWELL,   M.D. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

THE    AMERICAN    HUMANE   ASSOCIATION 
1903 


All  persons  interested  in  the  general  subject  of 
Vivisection,  and  particularly  those  inclined  to  favor 
some  reasonable  measure  for  its  legal  regulation  and 
supervision,  are  requested  to  send  to  the  undersigned 
their  names,  and  if  possible,  sp?ne  expression  of 
their  views. 

Address  : 

SYDNEY  RICHMOND   TABER, 

Secy  American  Humane  Association, 
532  Monadnock  Block, 

CHICAGO,  III. 


THE   RISE 


THE  YIYISECTION  CONTROVERSY 


a  Chapter  of  Ibtstor^ 


ALBERT  LEFFINGWELL,   M.D. 


NEW   YORK 

1903 


PREFACE. 


The  beginnings  of  the  Vivisection  agitation  are  vaguely  and  imper- 
fectly known  by  the  scientific  men  of  the  present  generation.  The  full 
history  of  the  movement  will  some  day  be  written,  at  a  time  when  preju- 
dice shall  be  less  potent,  and  when  clear  vision  becomes  possible  through 
lapse  of  time.  The  following  pages  contain  simply  some  materials  for 
that  history.  The  reader  will  discover  that  this  agitation  was  no  reckless 
outburst  of  misplaced  sentiment  and  excited  ignorance, — as  too  often  it 
has  been  represented, — but  that  it  took  its  rise  in  the  humane  protests  of 
the  Medical  Profession  against  cruelty  and  abuse. 

The  passages  which  appear  in  italics,  unless  so  stated,  are  not  thus 
emphasized  in  the  original  publication.  As  a  general  rule,  italics  are 
used  to  direct  attention  to  views  advocated  by  members  of  the  medical 
profession,  which  notably  differ  from  those  maintained  to-day  by  the 
extreme  advocates  of  free  vivisection. 

No  editorial  is  quoted  in  full;  and  the  extracts,  as  a  rule,  are  given 
only  so  far  as  they  illustrate  divergence  from  the  Continental  school  of 
opinions.  However  emphatic  in  condemnation,  they  must  not  be  taken 
as  indicative  of  the  advocacy  of  anti-vivisection  views,  or  of  opposition 
to  physiological  experimentation  when  pursued  by  competent  and  con- 
scientious men. 

The  writer  is  not  an  Anti-vivisectionist.  But,  believing  in  the  justi- 
fiability of  research,  humanely  conducted  under  the  supervision  of  the 
law,  he  has  no  hesitancy  in  avowing  that  his  sympathy  is  far  more  with 
the  views  which  were  almost  universally  held  by  the  Medical  Profession 
of  England  but  a  generation  since,  than  with  those  of  the  "free  vivisec- 
tion" party  of  the  present  time.  The  cruelties  of  unregulated  vivisection 
seem  to  the  writer  no  less  abhorrent  to-day,  than  but  a  little  while  ago 
they  seemed  to  the  leaders  of  the  profession  throughout  the  English- 
speaking  world. 

The  Hamilton  Club, 

Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  1903. 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  VIVISECTION"   CONTROVERSY 


Of  the  ethical  agitations  which  interested  humanity  during  the  Nine- 
teenth century,  none  has  been  more  seriously  misapprehended  by  educated 
men  than  the  one  which  questioned  or  impeached  the  morality  of  animal 
vivisection.  To  the  present  generation  of  scientific  teachers  or  medical  prac- 
titioners, the  origin  and  purpose  of  the  agitation  seem,  doubtless,  very  clear ; 
it  is  but  another  evidence,  they  would  tell  us,  of  that  blind  hatred  of 
Science  which  in  every  age  seeks,  vainly,  to  prevent  the  advancement  of  the 
human  intellect  and  the  conquest  of  the  Unknown.  The  vivisection  of 
animals,  we  should  perhaps  be  told,  is  a  practice  as  old  as  the  first  question- 
ings of  the  human  mind  regarding  the  phenomena  of  life.  Sometime 
during  the  past  half  century,  there  arose  in  England  an  irrational  outcry 
against  physiological  research,  a  sentimental  clamour  concerning  "cruelties" 
that  had  no  existence  except  in  the  heated  imaginations  of  ignorant  men. 
Against  this  misguided  agitation  stood,  of  course,  the  entire  medical  pro- 
fession, and  with  them  the  teachers  of  science  throughout  Great  Britain. 
Year  after  year,  they  doubtless  fought  for  the  maintenance  of  scientific 
liberty,  and  for  the  right  of  physiologists  to  do  what  they  wished ;  and  they 
yielded  at  last  to  legislation  which  was  without  justification,  and  most 
serious  in  its  detrimental  effects  upon  the  cause  of  learning  and  the  advance- 
ment of  medicine.  Something  like  this  is  undoubtedly  the  way  that  the 
origin  of  the  Vivisection  controversy  appears  to  the  present  generation  of 
college  graduates,  of  scientific  teachers,  and  of  medical  men ;  in  some  such 
inaccurate  and  visionary  form  it  has  been  represented  more  than  once,  for 
their  condemnation  and  contempt.* 

And  yet  such  a  view  is  absolutely  false  to  the  facts  of  history.  They 
were  not  ignorant  men  who  first  raised  protesting  voices  against  the  cruelties 

*  An  example  of  the  vague  and  inaccurate  notions  entertained  regarding  the  beginnings  of  the  vivisection 
agitation,  may  be  found  in  the  address  delivered  June  10,  1896,  before  the  Massachusetts  Medical  Society,  by 
Dr.  Henry  P.  Bowditch,  Professor  of  Physiology  at  Harvard  University.  The  speaker  said:  "The  first 
serious  attack  upon  biological  research  in  England  seems  to  have  been  in  an  essay  entitled  'Vivisection:  Is 
it  necessary  or  justifiable  ? '  published  in  London  in  1864  by  George  Flemming,  a  British  army  veterinary 
surgeon.  This  essay  is  an  important  one,  for  ...  its  blood-curdling  stories,  applied  to  all  sorts  of  institutions. 
have  formed  a  large  part  of  the  stock  in  trade  of  subsequent  antivivisection  writers. 

"A  fresh  stimulus  to  the  agitation  was  given  by  the  publication  in  1871  of  a  work  .  .  .  entitled  '  Handbook 
for  the  Physiological  Laboratory.'  This  book  was  intended  to  be  used  by  students  of  physiology  under  the 
guidance  of  their  instructors.  .  .  .  Unfortunately,  however,  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  excitable  men  and  women, 
who  were  ignorant  of  many  things  that  had  properly  been  taken  for  granted  in  writing  for  members  of  the 
medical  profession." 


6  THE   RISE    OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

of  vivisection.  Strange  as  it  now  seems,  it  was  the  medical  profession  of 
Great  Britain  that  first  denounced  the  atrocities  of  research,  and  held  them 
up  to  the  execration  of  the  English  people.  It  was  the  medical  press  that 
year  after  year  questioned  the  morality  of  practices  which  then  were 
abhorrent  to  the  vast  majority  of  English  medical  men.  The  story  which 
these  facts  imply  appears  to  me  worth  telling,  and  worth  remembering. 
The  voices  to  which  we  shall  listen  seem,  as  it  were,  echoes  from  the  tomb, 
for  the  men  who,  forty  years  ago,  represented  the  English  race  in  all  that 
concerns  the  advancement  of  medical  science,  have,  for  the  most  part,  passed 
beyond  the  gates.  The  denunciations  of  cruelty  that  they  uttered  so  forcibly 
are  now  no  longer  heard ;  other  voices  are  there  resonant ;  other  ideals 
dominate.  But  the  eternal  verities  do  not  vary ;  and  what  was  the  truth 
yesterday,  is  the  truth  to-day. 

The  history  of  the  Vivisection  agitation  has  yet  to  be  written.  In  the 
following  sketch,  I  shall  only  attempt  to  outline  one  peculiar  phase  of  the 
controversy :  the  attitude  toward  it  and  the  part  borne  in  it  by  the  medical 
profession.  It  will  be  of  interest  to  note  how  this  agitation  took  its  rise, 
and  to  what  revelations  and  denunciations  it  was  primarily  due. 

In  reviewing  the  controversy,  at  least  three  different  views  of  vivisection 
may  be  clearly  discerned.  As  constant  reference  must  be  made  to  them, 
let  us  at  the  outset  define  some  of  their  distinguishing  characteristics. 

First,  we  may  take  the  Continental  view ;  vivisection  for  its  own  sake, 
without  supervision,  legal  regulation  or  restrictions  of  any  kind ;  vivisection 
as  it  has  been  carried  on  for  centuries  by  experimenters  on  the  Continent  of 
Europe.  The  advancement  of  knowledge  and  not-  the  utility  of  medicine  is 
admitted  to  be  the  true  object  of  the  practice.*  In  performance  of  a  vivisec- 
tion, an  experimenter  is  under  no  obligation  to  consider  the  question  of 
pain.f  Whether  an  experiment  be  right  or  wrong,  useful  or  useless,  cruel 
or  otherwise,  are  matters  for  the  experimenter  alone  to  decide:  and  any 
legislation  which  attempts  to  define  under  what  conditions  or  for  what  pur- 
poses an  experiment  may  be  made,  seems  to  the  physiologist  of  the  Con- 
tinental school  "unnecessary  and  offensive  in  the  highest  degree. "%  He 
insists  that  he  cannot  be  subject  to  legal  supervision,  because  no  one  is 
competent  to  testify  to  his  fitness ;  in  other  words,  he  holds  himself  superior 
to  law  that  elsewhere  determines  and  regulates  the  conduct  of  mankind. § 
He  resents  the  imputation  of  "cruelty,''  but  holds  that  it  is  the  privilege  of 
the  vivisector   to   define   the   term.      Magendie,    Bernard,    Brown-Sequard, 

*  Dr.  Hermann:  "Die  Vivisectionsfrage,"  Leipsic,  1S77. 

+  Dr.  Emanuel  Klein  ;  see  testimony  following. 

$See  Senate  Doc.  No.  31,  54th  Cong.,  p.  3.     This  is  a  statement  of  American  vivisectors. 

§See  Letter  of  President  Eliot;  Report  of  Hearing,  1900,  p.  219. 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY.  y 

Mantegazza,  and  a  host  of  their  imitators  and  adherents  in  Europe  and 
America  may  be  said  to  represent  this  school  of  physiological  theory  and 
practice.  Doubtless,  there  are  shades  of  opinion  and  differences  in  practice. 
Upon  one  point,  however,  all  are  agreed :  that  the  vivisector  must  be  at 
liberty  to  do  as  he  likes,  and  free  from  every  restriction  or  restraint. 

A  frank  statement  of  the  practices  and  opinions  of  this  Continental 
type  of  physiologists  was  given,  in  1876,  in  the  evidence  of  Dr.  Emanuel 
Klein  before  the  Royal  Commission  on  Vivisection.  The  evidence  is  the 
more  important  from  the  fact  that  now,  for  nearly  thirty  years,  Dr.  Klein  has 
been  one  of  the  leading  physiologists  of  England. 

(Chairman.)  "What  is  your  practice  with  regard  to  the  use  of  anaesthetics  in 
experiments  that  are  otherwise  painful? — Except  for  teaching  purposes,  for  demonstra- 
tion, I  never  use  anaesthetics  where  it  is  not  necessary  for  convenience. 

When  you  say  you  only  use  them  for  convenience  sake,  do  you  mean  that  you  have 
no  regard  at  all  to  the  sufferings  of  the  animals  ? — No  regard  at  all. 

You  are  prepared  to  establish  that  as  a  principle  that  you  approve? — I  think  that 
with  regard  to  an  experimenter,  a  man  who  conducts  special  research,  and  performs  an 
experiment,  he  has  no  time,  so  to  speak,  for  thinking  what  the  animal  will  feel  or  suffer. 

As  an  investigator,  you  are  prepared  to  acknowledge  that  you  hold  as  entirely 
indifferent  the  sufferings  of  the  animal  which  is  subjected  to  your  investigation? — Yes. 

Do  you  believe  that  that  is  a  general  practice  on  the  Continent,  to  disregard  alto- 
gether the  feelings  of  the  animals, — I  believe  so. 

Have  you,  since  you  have  come  to  this  country,  had  any  proof  of  what  you  state 
now  with  regard  to  the  different  feeling  that  pervades  the  inhabitants  of  England  with 
regard  to  the  feelings  of  the  animals  on  which  you  operate? — Yes,  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  difference. 

Would  you  give  the  Commission  an  instance  .  .  .  ? — I  mean  in  regard  to  the 
journals ;  the  outcry  and  agitation  carried  on  in  the  different  journals  against  the 
practice  of  vivisection.  There  is  no  such  thing  abroad;  there  the  general  public  does 
not  claim  to  pronounce  any  criticism  or  any  judgment  about  scientific  teaching  or 
physiology  in  general. 

But  you  believe  that,  generally  speaking,  there  is  a  very  different  feeling  in  Eng- 
land?— Not  among  physiologists;    I  do  not  think  there  is. 

If  you  were  directed  to  perform  an  operation  .  .  .  with  reference  to  the  nerves 
of  a  dog,  and  it  became  necessary  to  cut  the  back  of  the  dog  severely  for  the  purpose 
of  exposing  the  dog's  nerves, — for  the  sake  of  saving  yourself  inconvenience,  you  would 
at  once  perform  that  without  the  use  of  anaesthetics? — Yes. 

You  say  that  a  physiologist  has  the  right  to  do  as  he  likes  with  the  animal? — Yes. 

And  you  think  that  the  view  of  scientific  men  on  the  Continent  is  your  view,  that 
animal  suffering  is  so  entirely  unimportant  compared  with  scientific  research  that  it 
should  not  be  taken  into  account  at  all? — Yes,  except  for  convenience  sake."* 

A  second  opinion  regarding  vivisection  is  that  which  almost  universally 
obtained  in  England  up  to   1870.     For  purposes  of  distinction  from  that 

*  Testimony,  somewhat  abbreviated,  from  minutes  of  Royal  Commission  on  Vivisection,  p.  183  et  seq. 
(Italics  ours.) 


8  THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

which  prevailed  on  the  Continent,  we  may  call  it  the  English  view,  although 
to-day,  we  should  find  it  largely  pushed  aside  by  its  more  vigorous  competi- 
tor. But  up  to  a  third  of  a  century  ago,  as  we  shall  see,  the  medical  pro- 
fession of  England  regarded  with  detestation  and  abhorrence  the  liberty  of 
vivisection  which  prevailed  on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  They  maintained, 
indeed,  the  right  of  animal  experimentation  for  purposes  of  scientific  dis- 
covery, but  they  condemned  in  no  measured  terms  the  repetition  of  experi- 
ments simply  for  the  demonstration  of  well-known  facts.  Sir  Charles  Bell, 
who  made  the  greatest  physiological  discovery  of  the  Nineteenth  century, 
thus  alludes  to  some  experiments  made  by  him : 

"After  delaying  long  on  account  of  the  unpleasant  nature  of  the  operation,  I 
opened  the  spinal  canal.  ...  I  was  deterred  from  repeating  the  experiment  by 
the  protracted  cruelty  of  the  dissection.  I  reflected  that  the  experiment  would  be 
satisfactory  if  done  on  an  animal  recently  knocked  down  and  insensible."* 

Again,  in  a  letter  to  his  brother,  he  says : 

"I  should  be  writing  a  third  paper  on  the  nerves ;  but  I  cannot  proceed  without 
making  some  experiments  which  are  so  unpleasant  to  make  that  I  defer  them.  You 
may  think  me  silly,  but  I  cannot  perfectly  convince  myself  that  I  am  authorized  in 
Nature  or  Religion  to  do  these  cruelties  ...  And  yet,  what  are  my  experiments 
in  comparison  with  those  which  are  daily  done,  and  are  done  daily  for  nothing  !"f 

Such  extreme  sensitiveness,  such  tender-hearted  hesitancy  to  inflict  tor- 
ment would  be  laughed  at  in  every  Continental  laboratory.  It  is  typical, 
however,  of  the  sentiment  which  once  everywhere  prevailed  in  the  medical 
profession  of  Great  Britain. 

A  third  phase  of  opinion,  representing  uncompromising  hostility  to  every 
phase  and  form  of  animal  experimentation,  is  that  known  as  Anti-vivisection. 
Fifty  years  ago,  as  a  form  of  party  belief  or  ground  of  agitation,  it  had  no 
existence.  It  sprang  into  being  because  of  the  revelations  made  by  the  medi- 
cal journals  of  England  regarding  Continental  cruelties ;  it  exists  from  a 
belief  that  like  cruelties  will  always  be  possible  wherever  any  form  of 
vivisection  is  sanctioned  by  law. 

The  following  extracts  from  the  editorial  columns  of  the  leading  medical 
journals  of  England  tell  their  own  story.  We  see  where  the  agitation 
against  the  cruelties  of  vivisection  first  began.  Arranged  in  chronological 
order,  they  give  us  a  clear  idea  of  the  views  regarding  animal  experimenta- 
tion held  by  the  medical  profession  of  England,  from  1858  down  to  the 
passage  of  the  Vivisection  Act  of  1876. 

*  Nervous  System  of  the  Human  Body,  London  1830,  p.  31.  Of  interest,  in  this  connection,  is  a  para- 
graph from  the  Lancet  (London)  of  Dec.  17,  1881  :  "Prof.  Schiff  has  lately  pointed  out  that  under  certain 
conditions  vital  functions  can  be  studied  by  dissecting'  freshly-killed  animals." 

t  Letters  of  Sir  Charles  Bell,  London,  1875,  p.  275. 


THE   RISE   OF    THE   VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY.  9 

Medical  Times  "In  this   country   we   are  glad  to  think  that  experiments   on 

and  Gazette  animals  are  never  performed,  now-a-days,  except  upon  some  reason- 

Sept.,  1858  able  excuse  for  the  pain  thus  wilfully  inflicted.     We  are  inclined 

to  believe  that  the  question  will  some  day  be  asked,  whether  any 
excuse  can  make  them  justifiable?  One  cannot  read  without  shuddering,  details  like 
the  following.  It  would  appear  from  these,  that  the  practice  of  such  brutality  is  the 
every-day  lesson  taught  in  the  veterinary  schools  of  France. 

"A  small  cow,  very  thin,  and  which  had  undergone  numerous  operations, — that  is 
to  say,  which  had  suffered  during  the  day  the  most  extreme  torture,  was  placed  upon 
the  table,  and  killed  by  insufflation  of  air  into  the  jugular  vein." 

This  fact  is  related  by  M.  Sanson  of  the  veterinary  school  of  Toulouse,  merely 
incidentally,  when  describing  an  experiment  of  his  own  upon  the  blood.  The  wretched 
animal  was  actually  cut  to  pieces  by  the  students !  .  .  .  M.  Sanson  adds  (merely 
wanting  to  prove  that  the  nervous  system  of  the  animals  upon  which  he  operated  was 
properly  stirred  up),  "Those  who  have  seen  these  wretched  animals  on  their  bed  of 
suffering — "lit  de  douleur," — know  the  degree  of  torture  to  which  they  are  subjected, 
torture,  in  fact,  under  which  they  for  the  most  part,  succumb !" 

— The  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  London  {Editorial) ,  Sept.  4,  1858. 

London  Lancet  After  pointing  out  the  utility  of  physiological  investigations  in 

Aug.,  i860  the  past,  the  editor  adds : 

"On  the  other  hand,  when  at  any  moment  the  practice  over- 
passes the  rigourous  bounds  of  utility,  when  its  object  is  no  longer  the  pursuit  of 
new  solutions  of  scientific  problems,  or  the  examination  of  hypotheses  requiring  a  test ; 
when  vivisection  is  elevated  into  an  art  and  this  art  becomes  a  matter  of  public 
demonstration,  then  it  is  degraded  by  the  absence  of  a  beneficent  end,  and  becomes  a 
cruelty.  Thus  the  exhibitions  of  experiments  which  aim  only  at  a  repetition  of 
inquiries  already  satisfactorily  concluded,  and  the  demonstration  of  functions  already 
understood,  appear  to  us  to  rank  among  the  excesses  which  must  be  deplored  if  not 
repressed.  The  displays  in  these  amphitheatres*  are  of  the  most  painful  kind ;  and  it  is 
to  be  most  deeply  regretted  that  curiosity  should  silence  feeling  and  draw  spectators 
to  mortal  suffering  .  .  .  The  Commission  [of  the  Societies  for  Prevention  of 
Cruelty]  asks  for  nothing  which  the  most  zealous  devotees  of  science  cannot, — and 
ought  not — to  grant.  It  demands  only  the  cessation  of  experiments  which  are  purely 
repetitive  demonstrations  of  known  facts." 

— The  London  Lancet  (Editorial) ,  Aug.  11,  i860. 

Medical  Times  "Two  years  ago,  we  called  attention  to  the  brutality  practiced 

and  Gazette  at  the  veterinary  schools  in  France,  and  gave  a  specimen  of  the  kind 

Oct.,  i860  of  torture,  there  inflicted  upon  animals.     We  are  very  glad  to  see 

that  the  public  are  now  occupied  with  the  subject,  and  we  are  sure 
that  the  Profession  at  large  will  fully  agree  with  us  in  condemning  experiments  which 
are  made  simply  to  demonstrate  physiological  or  other  facts  which  have  been  received 
as  settled  points  and  are  beyond  controversy.  We  consider  the  question  involved  as  one 
of  extreme  interest  to  the  Profession;  and  we  shall  gladly  throw  open  our  columns  to 
any  of  our  brethren  who  may  wish  to  assist  in  framing  some  code  by  which  we  may 
decide  under  what  circumstances  experiments  upon  living  animals  may  be  made  with 
propriety."  — Medical  Times  and  Gazette   (Editorial) ,  Oct.  20,  i860. 

*Of  the  medical  schools  of  Paris. 


10  THE   RISE    OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

London  Lancet  "The  moment  that  it   (vivisection)   overpasses  the  bounds  of 

Oct.,  i860  necessity;    when  it  ceases  to  aim  at  the   solution  of  problems  in 

which  humanity  is  interested,  and  becomes  a  new  means  of  public 
demonstration,  having  no  benevolent  end,  then  it  is  degraded  to  the  level  of  a  pur- 
poseless cruelty.  The  repetitive  demonstration  of  known  facts,  by  public  or  private 
vivisections,  is  an  abuse  that  we  deplore  and  have  more  than  once  condemned." 

—  The  Lancet,  London  (Editorial) ,  Oct.  20,  i860. 

London  Lancet  "Prof.  Owen,*  one  of  the  first  physiological  authorities  of  the 

Jan.,  1861  present  day,  observes,    'That  no  teacher  of  physiology  is  justified 

in  repeating  any  vivisectional  experiment,  merely  to  show  its  known 
results  to  his  class  or  to  others.  It  is  the  practice  of  vivisection,  in  place  of  physio- 
logical induction,  pursued  for  the  same  end,  against  which,  humanity,  Christianity  and 
Civilisation  should  alike  protest/  "        — From  Letter  to  The  Lancet,  Jan.  12,  1861. 

London  Medical  "Vivisection.     We  have  been  requested  to  pronounce  a  con- 

Times  and  demnation  of  vivisection     .     .     . 

Gazette  We  believe  that  if  anyone  competent  to  the  task  desires  to 

March,  1861  solve  any  question  affecting  human  life  or  health,  or  to  acquire 

such  a  knowledge  of  function  as  shall  hereafter  be  available  for 
the  preservation  of  human  life  or  health,  by  the  mutilation  of  a  living  animal,  he  is 
justified  in  so  doing.  But  we  do  not  hesitate  to  condemn  the  practice  of  operating  on 
living  animals  for  the  mere  purpose  of  acquiring  coolness  and  dexterity ;  and  we  think 
that  the  repetition  of  experiments  before  students,  merely  in  order  to  exhibit  them  as 
experiments,  showing  what  is  already  known,  is  equally  to  be  condemned." 

— Medical  Times  and  Gazette  (Editorial) ,  London,  March  2,  1861. 

British  Medical  "The  Emperor  of  the  French  has  received  a  deputation  from 

Journal  the  Royal  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals.     We 

May,  1861  sincerely  trust  that  this  interview  may  be  the  means  of  putting  an 

end  to  the  unjustifiable  brutalities  too  often  inflicted  on  the  lower 
animals  under  the  guise  of  scientific  experimentation.  It  has  never  appeared  clear  to 
us  that  we  are  justified  in  destroying  animals  for  mere  experimental  research  under 
any  circumstances ;  but  now  that  we  possess  the  means  of  removing  sensation  during 
experiments,  the  man  who  puts  an  animal  to  torture,  ought,  in  our  opinion,  to  be  prose- 
cuted." 

[Referring  to  the  experiment  upon  a  cow  mentioned  in  Dr.  Brown-Sequard's  "Jour- 
nal of  Physiology,"   and  already  described,  the  editor  adds:] 

"We  are  not  disposed,  in  a  question  of  this  kind,  in  which  some  of  the  highest 
considerations  are  concerned,  to  allow  our  opinion  to  be  swayed  by  the  opinions  or  the 
proceedings  of  even  the  greatest  surgeons  and  the  greatest  physiologists.  That  such 
authorities  performed  vivisection  is  a  fact ;  but  it  does  not  satisfy  us  that  the  proceeding 
is  justifiable.  Under  any  circumstances,  this  much,  we  think,  is  evident  enough :  that 
if  vivisections  be  permissible,  they  can  only  be  so  under  certain  limited  and  defined 
conditions.  We  need  hardly  add  that  these  conditions  have  not  yet  been  laid  down. 
Altogether,  the  subject  is  one  well  worthy  of  serious  discussion;  and  gladly  would  we 
see  the  interests  of  medical  science  in  the  matter  properly  reconciled  with  the  dictates 
of  the  moral  sense.  — British  Medical  Journal  (Editorial) ,  May  11,  1861. 

♦Sir  Richard  Owen. 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY.  u 

British  Medical  "The  brutalities  which  have  been  so  long  inflicted  upon  horses, 

Journal  etc.,  in  the  veterinary  schools  of  France  under  the  name  of  Science, 

Oct.,  1861  are  perfectly  horrible.     Some  idea  of  what  has  been  daily  going  on 

in  those  schools  during  many  past  years,  may  be  obtained  from  such 
a  statement  as  the  following,  taken  from  a  paper  by  M.  Sanson  in  the  Journal  of 
Physiology  [edited  by  Dr.  C.  E.  Brown-Sequard].  M.  Sanson  is  speaking  incidentally 
of  the  condition  of  the  animals  upon  whose  blood  he  was  himself  experimenting :  "A 
small  cow,"  he  writes,  "very  thin,  and  which  had  undergone  numerous  operations, — 
that  is  to  say  which  had  suffered  during  the  day,  the  most  extreme  torture,  was  placed 
upon  the  table,"  etc.  M.  Sanson  adds :  ".  .  .  Those  who  have  seen  these  wretched 
animals  on  their  bed  of  suffering, — lit  de  doulcur, — know  the  degree  of  torture  to 
which  they  are  subjected;  torture,  in  fact,  under  which,  they  for  the  most  part 
succumb!"  The  poor  brutes  arc  actually  sliced  and  chopped,  piecemeal,  to  death,  in 
order  that  the  elcves  (students)  may  become  skilful  operators!" 

— British  Medical  Journal   (Editorial) ,  Oct.  19,  1861. 

London  Medical  "No  person  whose  moral  nature  is  raised  above  that  of  the 

Times  and  Gazette  savage    would    defend    the    practices    which    lately    disgraced    the 
Aug.,  1862  veterinary    schools    of    France,    or    in    past    years    the    theatre    of 

Magendie.*  Prof.  Sharpey  in  his  address  to  the  British  Medical 
Association  has  accurately  drawn  the  required  limits,  by  asserting  that  where  the 
result  of  an  experiment  has  been  fully  obtained  and  confirmed,  its  repetition  is  inde- 
fensible; and  "as  the  art  of  operating  may  be  learned  equally  on  the  dead  as  on 
the  living  body,  operations  on  the  latter  for  the  purpose  of  surgical  instruction  are 
reprehensible  and  unnecessary." 

— Medical  Times  and  Gazette  (Editorial) ,  Aug.  16,  1862. 

British  Medical  After  stating  that  some  restrictions  should  be  imposed  regard- 

Journal  ing  vivisection,  the  editor  says :    "We  will  venture  to  suggest  that 

Sept.,  1862  these  restrictions   should  be  well  and  clearly  defined ;    that   some 

high  authority  like  Dr.  Sharpey  himself  should  lay  down  certain 
rules  on  the  subject,  and  for  the  very  purpose  of  preventing,  if  possible,  any  needless 
suffering  from  being  inflicted  experimentally  on  the  lower  animals.  All  of  us  must 
be  well  aware  that  many  needless  experiments  are  actually  performed,  and  until 
some  clearly  defined  rules  on  this  head  are  laid  down,  we  venture  to  think  such 
needless  suffering  will  still  continue  to  be  inflicted  on  animals.  If,  for  example,  it 
were  publicly  stated  by  authorities  in  the  profession  that  experiments  of  this  nature, 
made  for  the  mere  purpose  of  demonstrating  admitted  physiological  facts,  are  unjusti- 
fiable, a  great  step  would  be  gained,  and  a  great  ground  of  complaint  cut  from  under 
the  feet  of  the  enthusiastic  Anti-vivisection  societies.  The  very  fact  of  an  authorita- 
tive declaration  on  this  point  would  go  far  toward  giving  an  authoritative  sanction 
to  the  legitimate  performance  of  such  experiments.     .     .     ." 

— British  Medical  Journal  (Editorial) ,  Sept.  6,  1862. 

*  i.  e.  the  lecture  room. 


12  THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

British  Medical  "Vivisection  is  often  useful  and  sometimes  necessary  and  there- 

Journal  fore  not  to  be  absolutely  proscribed ;    but  I  would  gladly  petition 

May,  1863  the   Senate  to   forbid   its   performance   on  every  animal   which   is 

useful  to,  and  a  friend  of  man.  The  mutilations  and  tortures 
inflicted  upon  dogs  are  horrible.  The  King  of  Dahomey  is  less  barbarous  than  these 
merciless  vivisectors.  He  cuts  his  victims'  throats,  but  without  torturing  them,  while 
they  tear  and  cut  to  pieces  these  wretched  dogs  in  their  most  sensitive  parts.  Let 
them  operate  on  rats,  foxes,  sharks,  vipers  and  reptiles.  But  no;  our  vivisectors 
object  to  the  teeth,  the  claws,  the  beaks  of  these  repulsive  animals;  they  must  have 
gentle  animals ;  and  so  like  cowards,  they  seize  upon  the  dog, — that  caressing  animal, 
which  licks  the  hand,  armed  with  a  scalpel !" 

— British  Medical  Journal,  May  2,  1863;   quoted  from  editorial 
in   "E 'Union  Medicate,"  of  Paris. 

British  Medical  "We  are  very  glad  to  find  that  the  French  medical  journals 

Journal  are   entering  protests   against  the   cruel   abuse  which   is   made  of 

Aug.,  1863  Vivisection  in  France.    E'Abeille  Medicate  says: 

"I  am  quite  of  your  opinion  as  to  the  enormous  abuses  prac- 
ticed at  the  present  day  in  the  matter  of  vivisection  ....  In  the  laboratories  of 
the  College  of  France,  in  the  Ecole  de  Medicine,  eminent  professors,  placed  at  the  head 
of  instruction,  are  forced  to  the  painful  sacrifice  of  destroying  animals  in  order  to 
widen  the  field  of  science.  In  doing  so  they  act  legitimately,  and  suffering  humanity 
demands  it  of  them.  Those  experiments  are  performed  in  the  silence  of  the  private 
study,  and  the  results  obtained  are  then  explained  to  the  pupils,  or  treated  of  in  pub- 
lications. .  .  .  But  to  repeat  the  experiments  before  the  public,  to  descend  from 
the  professional  chair  in  order  to  practice  the  part  of  a  butcher  or  of  an  executioner, 
is  painful  to  the  feelings  and  disgusting  to  the  sentiments  of  the  student.  .  .  . 
Such  public  exhibitions  are  ignoble,  and  of  a  kind  which  pervert  the  generous  senti- 
ments of  youth.  An  end  should  be  put  to  them.  Ought  we  to  allow  the  elite  of  our 
French  youths  to  feed  their  eyes  with  the  sight  of  the  flowing  blood  of  living  animals, 
and  to  have  their  ears  stunned  with  their  groans,  at  this  time  when  society  is  calling 
for  the  doing  away  of  public  executions?  Let  no  one  tell  us  that  vivisections  are 
necessary  for  a  knowledge  of  physiology.  ...  If  the  present  ways,  habits  and  cus- 
toms are  continued,  the  future  physician  will  become  marked  by  his  cold  and  implac- 
able insensibility.  Let  there  be  no  mistake  about  it;  the  man  who  habituates  himself 
to  the  shedding  of  blood,  and  who  is  insensible  to  the  sufferings  of  animals  is  led  on 
into  the  path  of  baseness." 

So  writes  E'Abeille  Medicate.  But  here  L'Union  Medicate  takes  up  and  com- 
ments on  the  tale : 

"This  is  all  excellently  said;  but  we  must  correct  a  few  errors.  Magendie,  alas! 
performed  experiments  in  public,  and  sadly  too  often  at  the  College  de  France.  I 
remember  once,  among  other  instances,  the  case  of  a  poor  dog,  the  roots  of  whose 
spinal  nerves  he  was  about  to  expose.  Twice  did  the  dog,  all  bloody  and  mutilated, 
escape  from  his  implacable  knife ;  and  twice  did  I  see  him  put  his  fore  paws  around 
Magendie's  neck  and  lick  his  face !  I  confess — laugh,  Messieurs  les  Vivisecteurs,  if 
you  please, — that  I  could  not  bear  the  sight.  .  .  .  It  is  true  that  Dr.  P.  H.  Berard, 
professor  of  physiology,   never  performed   a   single  vivisection   in  his   lectures,   which 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 


13 


were  brilliant,  elegant  and  animated.  But  Berard  was  an  example  of  a  singular 
psychological  phenomenon.  Toward  the  close  of  his  life,  so  painful  to  him  was  the 
sight  of  blood  and  the  exhibition  of  pain,  that  he  gave  up  the  practice  of  surgery  and 
would  never  allow  his  students  to  witness  a  vivisection.  But  Berard  was  attacked 
by  cerebral  haemorrhage,  and  the  whole  tone  of  his  character  was  thereby  afterward 
changed.  The  benevolent  man  became  aggressive;  the  tolerant  man,  irritable.  .  .  . 
He  became  an  experimenter,  and  passed  whole  days  in  practicing  vivisections,  taking 
pleasure  in  the  cries,  the  blood  and  the  tortures  of  the  poor  animals." 

— British  Medical  Journal   {Editorial) ,  Aug.  22,  1863. 

The  London  "If   we    were   pressed   simply   for   a   categoric   answer   to   the 

Lancet  question  whether  such  a  practice  (as  vivisection)  were  permissible 

Aug.,  1863  under  proper  restrictions  and  for  the  purpose  of  advancing  science 

and  lessening  human  suffering,  we  need  hardly  say  that  the  answer 
would  be  in  the  affirmative."  It  is  asserted,  however,  that  the  practice  of  Vivisection 
and  such  investigations  as  are  implied  by  this  term,  "have  spread  from  the  hands  of  the 
retired  and  sober  man  of  matured  science  into  those  of  every-day  lecturers  and  their 
pupils" ;   and  that  such  experiments  "are  a  common  mode  of  lecture  illustration"     .    .    . 

"We  will  state  our  belief,  that  there  is  too  much  of  it  everywhere,  and  that  there  are 
daily  occurring  practices  in  the  schools  of  France  which  cry  aloud  in  the  name  both  of 
honour  and  humanity  for  their  immediate  cessation.  About  two  years  ago,  our  Royal 
Society  for  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  became  possessed  of  the  knowledge  that 
it  was  still  the  practice  in  the  schools  of  Anatomy  and  Physiology  in  France  for 
lecturers  and  demonstrators  to  tie  down  cats,  dogs,  rabbits,  etc.,  before  the  class ;  to 
perform  upon  them  operations  of  great  pain,  and  to  pursue  investigations  accompanied 
by  most  terrible  torture.  This,  too,  for  the  purpose  only  of  demonstrating  certain 
facts  which  had  been  for  long  unhesitatingly  admitted  and  for  giving  a  sort  of  meretri- 
cious air  to  a  popular  series  of  lectures.  It  learned,  moreover,  that  at  the  Veterinary 
schools  of  Lyons  and  Alfort,  live  horses  were  periodically  given  up  to  a  group  of 
students  for  anatomical  and  surgical  purposes,  often  exercised  with  .  .  .  extra 
refinements  of  cruelty."     .     .     . 

It  appeared,  that  at  Paris  the  whole  neighborhood  adjoining  the  medical  school — 
including  patients  in  a  maternity  hospital,  "were  constantly  disturbed  when  the  course  of 
physiology  was  proceeding  at  the  school,  by  the  howling  and  barking  of  the  dogs,  both 
night  and  day."  The  dogs  were  silenced.  "The  fact  was  the  poor  animals  were  now 
subjected  to  the  painful  operation  of  dividing  the  laryngeal  nerves  as  preliminary  to  the 
performance  of  other  mutilations  !  And  what  were  these  dogs  for?  Simply  for  the  vain 
repetition  of  clap-trap  experiments,  by  way  of  illustrations  of  lectures  for  first-year  stu- 
dents !  These  facts  becoming  known,  the  general  public  has  at  length  interfered,  and 
we  think,  with  very  great  propriety.  The  entire  picture  of  vivisectional  illustration  of 
ordinary  lectures  is  to  us  personally  repulsive  in  the  extreme.  Look,  for  example, 
at  the  animal  before  us,  stolen  (to  begin  with)  from  his  master;  the  poor  creature 
hungry,  tied  up  for  days  and  nights,  pining  for  his  home,  is  at  length  brought  into 
the  theatre.  As  his  crouching  and  feeble  form  is  strapped  upon  the  table,  he  licks 
the  very  hand  that  ties  him!  He  struggles,  but  in  vain,  and  uselessly  expresses  his 
fear  and  suffering  until  a  muzzle  is  buckled  on  his  jaws  to  stifle  every  sound.  The 
scalpel  penetrates  his  quivering  flesh.  One  effort  only  is  now  natural  until  his  powers 
are  exhausted,  a  vain,  instinctive  resistance  to  the  cruel  form  that  stands  over  him, 


I4  THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

the  impersonation  of  Magendie  and  his  class.  "I  recall  to  mind,"  says  Dr.  Latour, 
"a  poor  dog,  the  roots  of  whose  spinal  nerves  Magendie  was  about  to  expose.  Twice 
did  the  dog,  all  bloody  and  mutilated,  escape  from  his  implacable  knife,  and  twice  did 
I  see  him  put  his  fore-paws  around  Magendie's  neck  and  lick  his  face !  I  confess, — 
laugh  Messieurs  les  Vivisecteurs,  if  you  please, — I  confess  I  could  not  bear  the  sight." — 
But  the  whole  thing  is  too  horrible  to  dwell  upon.  Heaven  forbid  that  any  description 
of  students  in  this  country  should  be  witness  of  such  deeds  as  these !  We  repudiate 
the  whole  of  this  class  of  procedure.  Science  will  refuse  to  recognize  it  as  its  offspring, 
and  Humanity  shudders  as  it  gazes  on  its  face." 

— London  Lancet  (Leading  Editorial) ,  Aug.  22,  1863. 

British  Medical  "The  atrocities  of  vivisection  continue  to  occupy  the  attention 

Journal  of   the   Paris   papers.      The   Opinion   Nationale   says :     "The   poor 

Aug.,  1863  brutes'  cries  of  pain  sadden  the  wards  of  the  clinic,  rendering  the 

sojourn  there  insupportable  both  to  patients  and  nurses.  Only 
imagine,  that  when  a  dog  has  not  been  killed  at  one  sitting,  and  that  enough  life 
remains  in  him  to  experiment  upon  him  in  the  following  one,  they  put  him  back  in 
the  kennel,  all  throbbing  and  palpitating !  There  the  unhappy  creatures,  already  torn 
by  the  scalpel,  howl  until  the  next  day,  in  tones  rendered  hoarse  and  faint  by  another 
operation  intended  to  deprive  them  of  voice." 

— Britisli  Medical  Journal,  Aug.  29,  1863. 

London  Lancet  .     .     .     As  a  general   rule,  neither  our    (British)    students 

Aug.,   1863  nor  teachers  are  wont  to  carry  on  experiments  upon  living  animals 

even  in  a  private  way.  The  utmost  that  can  be  said  is  that  per- 
haps some  two,  or  three,  or  at  the  most  six,  scientific  men  in  London  are  known  to  be 
pursuing  certain  lines  of  investigation  which  require  them  occasionally  during  the 
year  to  employ  living  animals.  .  .  .  Whilst  the  schools  of  medicine  in  this  country 
are,  as  a  rule,  not  liable  to  the  charge  of  vivisectional  abuses  as  regards  the  higher  ani- 
mals, we  cannot  altogether  acquit  them  from  a  rather  reckless  expenditure  of  the  lives 
and  feelings  of  cold-blooded  creatures.  .  .  .  The  reckless  way  in  which  we  have 
seen  this  poor  creature  (the  frog)  cut,  thrown  and  kicked  about,  has  been  sometimes 
sickening.  .  .  .  We  cannot  help  feeling  there  is  both  a  bad  moral  discipline  for 
the  man,  as  well  as  an  amount  of  probable  pain  to  the  creature,  in  such  a  practice." 

— The  London  Lancet  (Editorial),  Aug.  29,  1863. 

British  Medical  "Our  readers  are  aware  that  the  French  Minister  of  Commerce 

Journal  submitted  to  the  Academy  of  Medicine  documents  supplied  to  him 

Sept.,  1863  by    a    London    society      ...      A    committee    of    the    Academy 

examined  these  questions  and  issued  a  report ;  but  they  did  not 
answer  the  simple  questions  put  to  it.  A  discussion  on  the  report  has  naturally 
taken  place  in  the  Academy  itself,  and  has  given  rise  to  some  very  interesting  remarks. 
M.  Dubois  .  .  .  refused  to  draw  up  the  report  because  he  differed  somewhat  in 
opinion  on  the  subject  of  vivisections  from  many  of  his  associates.  He  therefore 
reserved  the  liberty  of  speaking  his  mind  freely  on  the  subject  before  the  Academy. 
His  conclusions  are  well  worthy  serious  attention.  They  seem  to  us  to  contain  all 
that  can  be  rightly  said  in  favour  of  vivisection  and  to  put  the  matter  on  its  true 
and  proper  footing.  The  greatest  praise  is  due  to  M.  Dubois  for  having  had  the 
courage  to  express  his  opinion  so  boldly  and  openly     .     .     . 


THE   RISE    OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY.  15 

In  the  first  part  of  his  speech,  M.  Dubois  demolished  the  work  of  the  report, 
showing  that  it  did  not  answer  the  questions  of  the  government,  and  left  things  exactly 
in  their  previous  state.  He  then  proceeded  to  give  his  opinion  as  to  what  reforms 
should  be  made  in  the  practice  of  vivisection.  The  greatest  physiologists,  he  remarked, 
such  as  Harvey,  Asselli,  Haller,  were  parsimonious  and  discreet  in  their  use  of  vivisec- 
tion. To-day  we  have  before  our  eyes  a  very  different  spectacle.  "Under  pretense  of 
experimentally  demonstrating  physiology,  the  professor  no  longer  ascends  the  rostrum; 
he  places  himself  before  a  vivisecting  table ;  has  live  animals  brought  to  him,  and 
experiments.  The  habitual  spectators  at  the  School  of  Medicine,  the  College  of  France 
and  the  Faculty  of  Sciences  know  how  experiments  are  made  on  the  living  flesh,  how 
muscles  are  divided  and  cut,  the  nerves  wrenched  or  dilacerated,  the  bones  broken  or 
methodically  opened  with  gouge,  mallet,  saw,  and  pincers.  Among  other  tortures  there 
is  that  horrible  one  of  the  opening  of  the  vertebral  canal  or  of  the  spinal  column  to 
lay  bare  membranes  and  the  substance  of  the  marrow ;  it  is  the  sublime  of  horror* 
One  needs  to  have  witnessed  that  sight  thoroughly  to  comprehend  the  real  sense  of 
the  word  vivisection ;  whoever  has  not  seen  an  animal  under  experiment  cannot  form 
an  idea  of  the  habitual  practices  of  the  vivisectors.  M.  Dubois  drew  an  eloquent 
picture  of  these  practices,  become  usual  in  the  physiological  amphitheatres  in  the  midst 
of  blood  and  of  howls  of  pain,  and  he  showed  that  under  the  dominant  influence  of  the 
vivisectors,  physiological  instruction  has  gone  out  of  its  natural  road.  Himself  an 
eminent  pathologist,  he  treated  without  ceremony  the  unjustifiable  pretensions  of  those 
innovators,  who,  regardless  at  once  of  the  principles  of  physiology  and  those  of 
pathology,  try  to  transport  clinical  surgery  to  the  table  of  vivisection. 

M.  Dubois,  indeed,  was  so  pungent  in  his  censures  that  some  of  the  Academicians 
left  the  hall  without  awaiting  the  end  of  his  discourse.  The  veterinary  part  of  his 
audience  heard  him  to  the  end,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped,  profited  by  the  picture  he  drew  of 
the  sight  that  met  his  eyes  on  his  first  visit  to  Alfort.  M.  Renault,  the  director  of 
the  establishment,  took  M.  Dubois  into  a  vast  hall  where  five  or  six  horses  were  thrown 
down,  each  one  surrounded  by  a  group  of  pupils,  either  operating  or  waiting  their 
turn  to  do  so.  Each  group  was  of  eight  students,  and  matters  were  so  arranged 
that  each  student  could  perform  eight  operations,  so  well  graduated  that  although 
the  sixty-four  operations  lasted  ten  hours,  a  horse  could  endure  them  all  before 
being  put  to  death.  Although  unwilling  to  hurt  the  feelings  of  his  host,  M. 
Dubois  could  not  help  letting  slip  the  word  "atrocity."  "Atrocities,  if  you  please," 
replied  M.  Renault,  "but  they  are  necessary." —  "What !"  exclaimed  M.  Dubois, — ■ 
"sixty-four  operations,  and  ten  hours  of  suffering?" — M.  Renault  explained  to  him 
that  this  was  a  question  of  finance ;  that  if  more  money  were  allowed,  the  horses 
might  be  kept  only  three  or  four  hours  under  the  knife.  M.  Dubois  stated  that,  it  was 
true,  fewer  operations  are  now  performed,  and  that  horses  are  kept  less  time  under 
the  hands  of  experimenting  students.  But,  he  declared,  he  should  never  forget  the 
sight  he  witnessed  at  Alfort.  Some  of  the  horses  were  just  begun  upon;  others  were 
already  horribly  mutilated ;  they  did  not  cry  out,  but  gave  utterance  to  hollow  moans. 
M.  Dubois,  supported  by  the  authority  of  many  veterinary  surgeons,  demands  that  these 
practices  should  be  discontinued.  Dr.  Parchappe,  who  spoke  afterward,  agreed  with 
M.  Dubois.  He  said :  "  .  .  .  Experiments  on  animals  are  in  no  way  indispensa- 
ble to  completely  efficacious  instruction  in  physiology." 

*  Reference  was  undoubtedly  to  Brown-Sequard,  who  probably  inflicted  more  torment  upon  animals 
by  his  experiments  on  the  spinal  cord  than  any  vivisector  who  ever  lived.  In  1864  he  came  to  America  and 
was  made  a  professor  in  Harvard  Medical  School. 


l6  THE   RISE    OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

(The  following  were  the  resolutions  proposed  by  M.  Dubois  as  amendments  to  the 
report)  : 

"i.  The  Academy,  without  dwelling  on  the  injurious  form  of  the  documents  that 
have  been  submitted  to  it,  acknowledges  that  abuses  have  been  introduced  into  the 
practice  of  vivisection. 

2.  To  prevent  these  abuses,  the  Academy  expresses  the  wish  that  henceforward 
vivisection  may  be  exclusively  reserved  to  the  research  of  new  facts,  or  the  verification 
of  doubtful  ones ;  and  that  consequently,  they  may  no  more  be  practiced  in  the  public 
or  private  courses  of  lectures  for  the  demonstration  of  facts  already  established  by 
science. 

3.  The  Academy  equally  expresses  the  wish  that  the  pupils  at  the  schools  of 
veterinary  medicine  may  henceforward  be  exercised  in  the  practice  of  operations  on 
dead  bodies,  and  no  more  on  living  horses." 

The  discussion  on  vivisection  was  concluded  by  the  passage  of  a  resolution  .  .  .' 
which  leaves  the  matter  where  it  was.  "The  Academy  declares  that  the  complaints 
brought  forward  by  the  Society  for  the  Protection  of  Animals  are  without  founda- 
tion ;  that  no  notice  need  be  taken  of  them,  and  that  the  performance  of  vivisections 
and  of  surgical  operations  as  practiced  in  the  veterinary  schools,  should  be  left  to  the 
discretion  of  men  of  science." 

Everyone  who  has  followed  this  debate  must  be  aware  that  the  resolution  is  .  .  . 
entirely  opposed  to  the  facts  elicited  in  the  discussion.  Almost  every  speaker,  except 
the  veterinaries,  put  in  a  protest,  more  or  less  strong,  against  the  practice  of  surgical 
operations  in  veterinary  schools,  and  again  and  again  was  the  word  "atrocious"  applied 
to  them.  We  learn,  moreover,  that  this  mode  of  instruction  was  adopted  in  1761,  so 
that  for  more  than  a  century  these  "atrocious"  operations  have  been  practiced  on 
animals  in  French  veterinary  schools ;  and  yet  the  Academy  decides  that  complaints  on 
this  score  are  without  foundation  and  that  men  of  science  in  this  matter  need  no  inter- 
ference !  ...  At  all  events,  we  may  be  sure  that  however  much  the  Academicians 
may  snub  the  affair,  the  discussion  cannot  fail  to  have  beneficial  results." 

— British  Medical  Journal  {Leading  Editorial) ,  Sept.  19,  1863. 

British  Medical  "M.  Dubois  has  published  a  discourse    ...     on  the  subject 

Journal  of  vivisection  in  answer  to  objections  made  to  the  amendments 

Oct.,  1863  proposed  by  him.     It  is  a  brilliant  summary  of  the  whole  subject, 

and  utterly  condemnative  of  the  amendments  carried  by  the 
Academy.  M.  Dubois  showed  to  demonstration  that  .  .  .  physiological  demon- 
strations on  living  animals  in  the  public  [Medical]  schools  are  utterly  unjustifiable 
and  a  scandal  to  humanity.  In  all  this,  zve  most  thoroughly  agree  with  him.  He  said : 
"If  we  are  to  carry  out  the  wishes  of  certain  savants,  we  shall  make  everyone  of 
our  professional  chairs  a  scene  of  blood.  .  .  .  Let  us  tell  the  Minister  that  vivisec- 
tions are  necessary  for  the  advancement  of  science,  and  that  to  suppress  them  would 
be  to  arrest  the  progress  of  physiology;  but  let  us  also  say  that  they  are  unnecessary 
in  the  teaching  of  this  science  and  that  recourse  ought  not  to  be  had  to  them,  either 
in  public  or  private  lectures." 

— British  Medical  Journal  {Editorial) ,  Oct.  10,  1863. 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY.  17 

British  Medical  "The  conditions  under  which, — and  under  which  alone, — vivi- 

Journal  sections  may  be  justifiably  performed  seem  to  us  to  be  clear,  and 

Jan.,  1864  easily  stated.     .     .     .    We  would  say  then,  in  the  first  place,  that 

those  experiments  on  living  animals,  and  those  alone  are  justifiable, 
which  are  performed  for  the  purpose  of  elucidating  obscure  or  unknown  questions  in 
physiology  or  pathology;  that  whenever  any  physiological  or  pathological  fact  has 
been  distinctly  and  satisfactorily  cleared  up  and  settled,  all  further  repetition  of  the 
experiments  which  were  originally  performed  for  its  demonstration  are  unjustifiable; 
that  they  are  needless  torture  inflicted  on  animals,  being  in  fact,  performed  not  for 
the  purpose  of  elucidating  unknown  facts,  but  to  satisfy  man's  curiosity.     .    .    . 

And  in  the  second  place,  we  would  say  that  only  those  persons  are  justified  in 
experimenting  upon  living  animals  who  are  capable  experimentalists  .  .  .  All 
experiments  made  by  inexperienced  and  incapable  observers  are  unjustifiable,  and 
for  an  obvious  reason.  The  pain  in  such  case,  suffered  by  the  animal,  is  suffered  in 
vain    .     .    .     Pain  so  inflicted  is  manifest  cruelty." 

— British  Medical  Journal   (Editorial) ,  Jan.  16,  1864. 

British  Medical  "Far  be  it  from  us  to  patronize  or  palliate  the  infamous  prac- 

Journal  tices,   the   unjustifiable   practices    committed   in   French   veterinary 

June,  1864  schools,  and  in  many  French  Medical   schools,   in  the  matter  of 

vivisection.  We  repudiate  as  brutal  and  cruel  all  surgical  opera- 
tions performed  on  living  animals.  We  repudiate  the  repetition  of  all  experiments 
on  animals  for  the  demonstration  of  any  already  well-determined  physiological  ques- 
tion. We  hold  that  no  man  except  a  skilled  anatomist  and  a  well-informed  physiolo- 
gist has  a  right  to  perform  experiments  on  animals."  * 

— British  Medical  Journal   (Editorial) ,  June  11,  1864. 

In  1864,  The  Royal  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals 
offered  a  prize  for  the  best  essay  on  these  questions : 

Is  vivisection  necessary  or  justifiable  for  purposes  of  giving  dexterity  to  the  opera- 
tor (as  in  veterinary  schools)  ? 

Is  it  necessary  or  justifiable  for  the  general  purposes  of  science,  and  if  so,  under 
what  limitations? 

The  committee  which  decided  the  merits  of  the  essays  submitted, 
included  some  of  the  most  distinguished  scientists  of  England,  among  them 
Professor  Owen  (better  known  as  Sir  Richard  Owen),  and  Professor 
Carpenter,  physiologists  of  eminence  and  experience.  The  first  prize  was 
accorded  to  Dr.  George  Fleming,  the  leading  veterinary  authority  in  Great 
Britain  for  many  years,  and  a  second  prize  was  given  to  Dr.  W.  O.  Mark- 
ham,  F.R.C.P.,  one  of  the  physicians  to  St  Mary's  Hospital  of  London,  and 
formerly  Lecturer  on  Physiology  at  St.  Mary's 'Hospital  Medical  School. 

Dr.  Fleming's  essay  was  undoubtedly  of  great  utility  in  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  abuses  pertaining  to  Continental  physiological  teaching.     That 

*  The  writer  then  defends  vivisections  made  by  skilled  men  in  way  of  original  research. 


1 8  THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

which  makes  his  essay  of  chief  value  is  not  so  much  the  presentation  of 
arguments,  as  the  long  array  of  unquestionable  facts  for  which  the  authori- 
ties are  given.  There  is  hardly  a  physiological  writer  of  distinction,  from 
whose  works  he  did  not  quote  to  illustrate  the  excesses  he  condemns. 

It  is  Dr.  Markham's  essay,  however,  which  for  us,  at  the  present 
moment,  has  principal  significance.  It  is  the  argument  of  a  professional 
physiologist,  defending  the  right  of  scientific  research  within  limits  which 
then  seemed  just  and  right  to  the  entire  medical  profession  of  the  United 
Kingdom.  Every  physiologist  or  physician  upon  that  committee  which 
examined  the  essays,  is  said  to  have  marked  with  approval  this  presentation 
of  their  views;  and  Professor  Owen, —  (probably  then  the  most  distin- 
guished man  of  science  in  Great  Britain) — appended  a  note  significant  of 
his  especial  agreement.  And  yet  Dr.  Markham's  essay  is  never  quoted  at 
present,  by  any  advocate  of  free  vivisection ;  even  Professor  Bowditch  in 
that  address  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  left  unmentioned  the  work 
of  his  professional  brother,  one  of  the  earliest  defenders  of  animal  experi- 
mentation. 

The  reader  of  Dr.  Markham's  essay  will  not  find  it  difficult  to  com- 
prehend the  cause  of  this  significant  silence.  Although  the  essay  was  in  no 
way  sympathetic  with  anti-vivisection,  it  represented  the  Anglo-Saxon  ideal, 
in  marked  distinction  from  the  doctrines  which  then  prevailed  in  the  labora- 
tories of  Continental  Europe,  and  which  since  have  become  dominant 
throughout  the  United  States.  Defending  the  practice  of  vivisection  as  a 
scientific  method,  Dr.  Markham  freely  admitted  the  prevalence  of  abuses  to 
which  it  was  liable  when  carried  on  without  regulation  or  restraint.  Under 
proper  limitations,  it  was  at  present  necessary  that  some  vivisection  should 
be  allowed ;  but  with  the  advance  of  knowledge,  he  believed  that  this 
necessity  would  decrease,  and  the  practice  of  animal  experimentation 
gradually  tend  to  disappear.  Some  quotations  from  this  essay  will  be  of 
interest. 

"The  proper  and  only  object  of  all  justifiable  experiments  on  animals  is  to 
determine  unknown  facts  in  physiology,  pathology  and  therapeutics,  whereby  medical 
science  may  be  directly  or  indirectly  advanced.  When,  therefore,  any  fact  of  this 
kind  has  been  once  determined  and  positively  acquired  to  science,  all  repetition  of 
experiments  for  its  further  demonstration  are  unnecessary  and  therefore  unjustifiable. 

All  experiments,  therefore,  performed  before  students,  in  classes  or  otherwise,  for 
the  purpose  of  demonstrating  known  facts  in  physiology  or  therapeutics  are  unjusti- 
fiable. And  they  are  especially  unjustifiable  because  they  are  performed  before  those 
who,  being  mere  students,  are  incapable  of  fully  comprehending  their  value  and 
meaning.  They  are  needless  and  cruel;  needless,  because  they  demonstrate  what  is 
already  acquired  to  science ;    and  especially  cruel,  because  if  admitted  as  a  recognized 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 


19 


part  of  students'  instruction,  their  constant  and  continued  repetition,  through  all  time, 
would  be  required.  I  need  hardly  say  that  courses  of  experimental  physiology  are 
nowhere  given  in  this  country,  and  that  these  remarks  apply  only  to  those  schools 
in  France  and  elsewhere,  where  demonstrations  of  this  kind  are  delivered."  * 

"Especially  cruel!"  Little  could  Dr.  Markham  have  imagined  that 
this  "especial  cruelty"  which  he  thus  so  emphatically  denounced  in  1864, 
would  spread  from  the  Continent  of  Europe,  and  become,  within  the  short 
space  of  a  single  generation,  the  accepted  method  of  physiological  instruc- 
tion in  every  leading  college  or  university  in  the  United  States ! 

Dr.  Markham  evidently  fancied  that  with  the  larger  acquirement  of 
facts,  the  vivisection  method  would  gradually  become  obsolete.     He  says : 

"A  consideration  of  the  conditions  here  proposed  as  requisite  for  the  rightful 
performance  of  experiments  on  living  animals,  shows  that  experiments  of  this  kind 
must  ever  be  very  limited,  because  those  persons  who  are  fitted  for  the  due  per- 
formance of  them  are  of  necessity  few  in  number ;  and  that  in  proportion  as  new 
facts  are  added  by  them  to  our  knowledge,  the  experiments  must  diminish  in 
number."     .     .     .f 

"Thus,  then,  we  have  seen,  that  in  the  case  of  experiments  legitimately  performed 
on  living  animals,  .  .  .  such  experiments  must  always,  from  their  nature,  be  con- 
paratively  few ;  that  they  must  gradually  diminish  with  the  advance  of  scientific 
knowledge,  so  that  a  time  may  come  when  experiments  on  living  animals  will  cease 
to  be  justifiable."  % 

".  .  .  Very  different,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  character  and  objects  of  physio- 
logical demonstrations  performed  in  French  Schools  of  Medicine.  .  .  .  These  most 
painful  practices  are  unjustifiable  because  they  are  unnecessary.  .  .  .  They  afford 
no  instruction  to  the  student  which  may  not  be  equally  well  obtained  in  another  way. 
The  pain,  moreover,  attendant  on  such  proceedings  is  unlimited  and  unceasing.  If 
they  are  to  be  accepted  as  a  necessary  part  of  the-  systematic  instruction  of  the  student, 
then  must  every  veterinary  student  practice  these  experimental  surgical  operations, 
and  every  medical  student  be  made  a  witness  of  physiological  demonstrations  on 
living  animals.  In  all  veterinary  schools,  under  such  conditions,  an  incalculable 
amount  of  pain  inflicted  on  animals  becomes  a  part  of  the  regular  instruction  of 
students.     At  such  a  conclusion,  Humanity  revolts."  § 

"Experiments  performed  on  living  animals  for  the  demonstration  of  facts  already 
positively  acquired  to  science,  are  unjustifiable;  and  especially  unjustifiable  are  such 
experiments,  when  made  a  part  of  a  systematic  course  of  instruction  given  to  students." 

Here  then,  we  have  a  view  of  vivisection,  presented  less  than  forty 
years  since  by  a  professional  teacher  of  physiology  in  a  London  medical 
school.  That  the  author  was  mistaken  in  his  outlook,  that  the  practice  of 
vivisection  instead  of  diminishing,  has  a  thousand  times  increased,  and  that 
operations  then  regarded  as    "especially  cruel"    have  become  the  prevalent 

*  Experiments  and  Surgical  Operations  on  Living  Animals  :  One  of  two  Prize  Essays.     London.     Robert 
Hardwick,  1866. 

t  Op.  cit.,  p.  102.  t  Op.  cit.,  p.  106.  §pp.  106-107. 


20  THE   RISE    OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

methods  of  instruction,  are  matters  evident  to  all.  Peculiarly  significant  is 
the  fact  that  a  creed,  once  almost  universally  held,  may  be  so  thoroughly 
obliterated  by  its  antagonists  within  so  brief  a  time.  One  may  safely  assert 
that  not  a  single  recent  graduate  from  any  Medical  College  in  America, 
not  a  single  student  of  physiology  in  any  institution  of  learning  in  our  land 
to-day,  has  ever  been  told  that  the  practice  of  animal  experimentation  was 
once  thus  regarded  by  a  large  majority  of  the  English-speaking  members 
of  the  medical  profession.  So  completely  has  the  Continental  view  of  the 
moral  irresponsibility  of  science  established  itself  in  American  Colleges,  that 
the  former  preponderance  of  other  ideals  has  passed  from  the  memory  of  the 
present  generation  of  scientific  men. 

The  subject  of  vivisection  does  not  again  appear  to  have  engaged  the 
attention  of  the  English  medical  press  for  several  years.  The  abuses  and 
cruelties  on  the  Continent,  against  which  it  had  so  vigorously  protested, 
continued  as  before.  In  a  brief  editorial,  the  London  Lancet,  during  1869, 
again  referred  to  the  subject: 

"Vivisection.  The  subject  of  vivisection  has  been  again  brought  on  the  tapis, 
owing  to  some  remarks  made  by  Prof.  (Claude)  Bernard  ...  at  the  College  de 
France  .  .  .  He  admits  on  one  occasion  having  operated  on  an  ape,  but  never 
repeated  the  experiment,  the  cries  and  gestures  of  the  animal  too  closely  resembling 
those  of  a  man. 

As  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  remarks,  M.  (Claude)  Bernard  expatiates  on  the  subject 
with  a  complacency  which  reminds  us  of  Peter  the  Great,  who  wishing,  while  at 
Stockholm,  to  see  the  wheel  in  action,  quietly  offered  one  of  his  suite  as  the  patient  to 
be  broken  on  it     .     .     . 

We  consider  that  vivisection  constitutes  a  legitimate  mode  of  inquiry  when  it  is 
adopted  to  obtain  a  satisfactory  solution  of  a  question  that  has  been  fairly  discussed, 
and  can  be  solved  by  no  other  means     .     .     . 

We  hold  that  for  mere  purposes  of  curiosity,  or  to  exhibit  to  a  class  what  may  be 
rendered  equally — if  not  more — intelligible  by  diagrams  or  may  be  ascertained  by 
anatomical  investigation  or  induction,  vivisection  is  wholly  indefensible,  and  is  alike 
alien  to  the  feelings  and  humanity  of  the  Christian,  the  gentleman  and  the  physician."  * 

At  the  annual  meeting  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement 
of  Science,  which  convened  in  September,  1870,  a  significant  resolution 
was  offered.  It  authorized  the  appointment  of  a  committee  who  were 
requested 

"to  consider  from  time  to  time,  whether  any  steps  can  be  taken  by  them,  or  by 
this  Association,  which  will  tend  to  reduce  to  its  minimum  the  suffering  entailed  by 
legitimate  physiological  inquiries ;  or  any  which  will  have  the  effect  of  employing 
the  influence  of  this  Association  in  the  discouragement  of  experiments  which  are  not 
clearly  legitimate,  on  living  animals."  f 

*  London  Lancet  (Editorial),  April  3,  1869. 

+  The  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  London,  Sept.  24,  1870. 


THE   RISE    OF    THE    J 7 VI SECTION   CONTROVERSY.  2 1 

The  resolution  was  carried  "by  a  large  majority."  It  undoubtedly  was 
presented  by  some  one  aware  of  the  extent  to  which  the  practice  was  secretly 
increasing  in  Great  Britain.  One  may  question,  nevertheless,  whether  it 
prevented  a  single  experiment,  "not  clearly  legitimate,"  which  any  physiolo- 
gist desired  to  perform. 

For  the  hour  was  approaching  when  all  England  was  to  be  aroused,  not 
as  before,  with  indignation  concerning  atrocities  in  Paris  or  Alfort,  but 
with  well-founded  fear  of  the  introduction  of  Continental  vivisection  on 
British  soil.  On  January  7,  1871, — the  first  week  of  the  new  decade, — a 
leading  medical  journal  began  the  report  of  a  course  of  lectures  delivered 
"  in  the  Physiological  Laboratory  of  University  College"  in  London,  and 
illustrated  by  the  vivisection  of  animals.  During  one  of  these  discourses, 
the  lecturer,  a  professor  of  physiology,  Dr.  J.  Burdon  Sanderson,  made  the 
following  statement  of  his  views : 

"With  respect  to  what  are  called  vivisections,  I  assure  you  that  I  have  as  great  a 
horror  of  them  as  any  member  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals. 
The  rules  in  respect  to  them  are  these :  First,  no  experiment  that  can  be  done  under 
the  influence  of  an  anaesthetic,  ought  to  be  done  without  it.  Secondly,  no  painful 
experiment  is  justifiable  for  the  mere  purpose  of  illustrating  a  law  or  fact  already 
demonstrated.  Thirdly,  whenever  for  the  investigation  of  new  truth,  it  is  necessary 
to  make  a  painful  experiment,  every  effort  should  be  made  to  insure  success,  in  order 
that  the  suffering  inflicted  may  not  be  wasted.  For  the  question  of  cruelty  depends  not 
on  the  amount  of  suffering,  but  on  its  relation  to  the  good  to  be  attained  by  it."  * 

The  lecturer  contended  that  no  experiment  should  be  performed  by  an 
unskilled  person  with  insufficient  instruments,  and  argued,  therefore,  in 
favor  of  the  establishment  of  Physiological  Laboratories,  equipped  with  all 
modern  devices  and  instruments  for  vivisection. 

Some  of  his  demonstrations  were  doubtless  unproductive  of  pain,  but  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  in  other  experiments  no  anaesthetic  was  employed,  it 
may  be  questioned  whether  his  second  "rule"  was  always  very  strictly 
observed.  In  one  lecture,  he  referred  to  his  demonstration  "as  the  first 
time  that  we  have  applied  electrical  stimulus  to  a  nerve,"  and  explains  that 
when  the  experiment  is  made  on  an  animal  paralyzed  with  curare,  the  effect 
is  more  complicated  when  a  sensory  nerve  is  irritated,  since  then  "the 
arteries  all  over  the  body  contract,  because  the  brain  is  in  action. "f  No 
plainer  confession  of  the  existence  of  sensibility  could  be  made,  yet  for 
obvious  reasons,  the  lecturer  carefully  avoids  admitting  the  presence  of 
pain.  During  the  following  year  there  appeared  articles  describing  "the 
teaching  of  practical  physiology  in  the  London  schools."     At  Kings  College 

*  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  Feb.  25,  1871. 
t  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  June  17,  1871. 


22  THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

in  London,  for  example,  demonstrations  were  made  by  the  lecturer,  but 
"experiments  on  animals  are  never  given  to  the  ordinary  student  to  do ; 
Professor  Rutherford's  experience  on  this  point  is  that  such  attempts  result 
only  in  total  failure."*  On  the  other  hand,  at  University  College,  the  Con- 
tinental method  of  teaching  was  to  be  found.  "Students  perform  experi- 
ments on  animals.  Frogs,  curarized  or  chloroformed,  are  given  them,  and 
the  experiment  which  has  been  fully  explained  and  demonstrated  by  the  pro- 
fessor, is  performed  by  them  as  far  as  practicable. "f  Here,  then,  we  find 
introduced  into  England  (and  perhaps  there  existing  in  secret  for  some  time 
before),  that  vivisection  of  animals  in  illustration  of  well-known  facts, 
which,  but  a  few  years  earlier,  every  leading  medical  journal  of  Great  Britain 
had  so  emphatically  reprobated  and  denounced. 

The  Continental  school  of  English  physiologists  seemed  confident  of 
victory.  But  the  leading  exponents  of  English  ideals  in  medicine  were  not 
inclined  to  surrender  at  once ;  now  and  then  we  find  them  vigorously  main- 
taining their  ground,  and  disposed  to  contrast  the  science  gained  in  the 
laboratory  with  that  gathered  by  experience  and  fortified  by  reflection. 
Some  extracts  from  a  leading  editorial  in  the  Medical  Times  and  Gazette 
are  extremely  suggestive  of  the  conflict  of  opinions : 

"The  relation  of  physiology  to  practical  medicine  is  a  subject  which  has  been 
brought  prominently  into  notice  by  the  address  of  Dr.  Burdon  Sanderson  ...  at 
the  recent  meeting  of  the  British  Association.  That  address  may  be  considered  as  the 
first  authoritative  and  public  announcement  made  in  this  country  that  it  is  the  aim 
and  intention  of  the  Physiological  school  of  thought  and  work  to  separate  themselves 
more  and  more  from  the  school  of  practical  Medicine ;  no  longer  to  consider  them- 
selves auxiliary  to  it  except  as  other  sciences, — for  instance,  chemistry  and  botany — 
may  be  considered  auxiliary  to  it,  but  to  win  a  place  in  public  estimation  for  their 
science  as  one  which  shall  be  cultivated  for  its  own  sake.     .    .     . 

The  teaching  of  experience  is  more  reliable  than  physiological  theories  and  opinions. 
.  .  .  The  history  of  the  advance  of  the  cure  of  disease  is  the  history  of  empiricism, 
in  the  best  sense  of  that  much-abused  word.  The  history  of  retrogression  in  the 
art  of  curing  disease  is  that  of  so-called  Physiological  Schools  of  Medicine.  .  .  . 
Physiological  theory,  based  on  experiments  on  dogs,  wishes  us  to  believe  that  mercury 
does  not  excite  a  flow  of  bile ;  but  here,  the  common-sense  of  the  Profession,  educated 
by  experience,  has  refused  to  be  led  by  physiological  theory.  .  .  .  Modern  physio- 
logical science  has  taught  us  little  more  than  the  necessity  of  pure  air,  water  and  food, 
good  clothing  and  shelter,  moderation  in  eating  and  drinking,  and  regulation  of  the 
passions, — things  in  fact  which  are  as  old  as  the  Pentateuch.  If  we  go  beyond  these 
we  get  into  the  domain  of  practical  medicine.  We  may  safely  assert,  that  all  the 
experiments  made  on  luckless  animals  since  the  time  of  Magendie  to  the  present,  in 
France,   America,    Germany  and   England,   have   not   prolonged   one  tithe   of  human 

*  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  July  20,  1872. 
t  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  July  27,  1872. 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    V TV 7 SECTION   CONTROVERSY.  23 

life,  or  diminished  one  tithe  of  the  human  suffering  that  have  been  prolonged  and 
diminished  by  the  discovery  and  use  of  Jesuits'  bark  and  cod-liver  oil."* 

Early  the  next  year  (1873),  was  published  the  "Hand-book  of  the 
Physiological  Laboratory,"  compiled  by  leading  men  of  the  physiological 
party,  among  whom  were  Professors  Sanderson,  Foster  and  Klein. 
Describing  the  method  of  performing  various  experiments  upon  animals, 
it  included  a  particular  account  of  some  of  the  most  excruciatingly  painful 
of  the  vivisections  practiced  abroad.  So  atrocious  was  one  of  the  experi- 
ments thus  described  in  this  hand-book  for  students,  that  Prof.  Michael 
Foster,  who  wrote  the  description,  afterward  confessed  that  he  had  never 
seen  or  performed  the  experiment  himself,  partly  "from  horror  of  the  pain." 
Reviewing  the  work,  a  medical  journal  justly  declared  that  "the  publication 
of  this  book  marks  an  era  in  the  history  of  Physiology  in  England.  .  .  . 
It  shows  the  predominant  influence  which  Germany  now  exercises  in  this 
department  of  science."^  A  professor  of  physiology,  Dr.  Gamgee,  about 
the  same  time  refers  to  the  physiological  laboratories  of  Edinburgh,  Cam- 
bridge and  London,  and  the  part  they  sustained  "in  what  I  may  call — the 
Revival  of  the  study  of  experimental  physiology  in  England. "% 

Emboldened  by  continuing  success,  the  advocates  of  Continental  vivi- 
section in  England  determined  to  advance  yet  another  step.  The  annual 
meeting  of  the  British  Medical  Association  for  1874  was  to  be  held  that  year 
in  August,  in  the  city  of  Norwich.  A  French  vivisector,  Dr.  Magnan,  was 
invited  to  be  present,  and  to  perform  in  the  presence  of  English  medical 
men,  certain  experiments  upon  dogs.  On  this  occasion,  however,  the  pub- 
lic demonstration  of  French  methods  of  vivisection  did  not  pass  without 
protest ;  there  was  a  scene ;  some  of  the  physicians  present, — among  them 
Dr.  Tufnell,  the  President  of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons  of  Ireland,  and 
Dr.  Haughton  of  the  medical  school  in  Dublin  denounced  the  experiments 
at  the  time  they  were  made  as  unjustifiably  cruel.  Public  attention  was 
beginning  to  be  aroused;  it  was  decided  to  test  the  question  whether  such 
exhibitions  were  protected  by  English  law,  and  a  prosecution  was  instituted 
against  some  who  had  assisted  in  performing  the  experiments.  Dr.  Tufnell 
appeared  to  testify  in  regard  to  the  cruelty  of  the  exhibition,  and  Sir 
William  Fergusson,  surgeon  to  the  Queen,  who  had  only  just  retired  from 
the  presidency  of  the  British  Medical  Association,  not  only  stigmatized  one 
of  the  experiments  as  "an  act  of  cruelty,"  but  declared  that  "such  experi- 
ments would  not  be  of  the  smallest  possible  benefit."§     The  magistrates 

*  Medical  Times  and  Gazette  (Editorial),  September  7,  1872. 
t  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  London,  March  29,  1873. 
X  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  London,  October  18,  1873. 
§  British  Medical  Journal,  Dec.  12,  1874. 


24 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION    CONTROVERSY. 


decided  that  while  the  case  was  a  very  proper  one  to  prosecute,  yet  the  gen- 
tlemen named  as  defendants  were  not  sufficiently  proven  to  have  taken  part 
in  the  experiment.  The  decision  was  not  unjust:  the  real  offender  was  safe 
in  his  native  land. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  trace  the  course  of  the  English  agitation  against 
vivisection,  except  as  it  may  be  seen  in  the  medical  literature  of  the  time. 
Three  parties  opposed  one  another :  first,  the  anti-vivisectionists,  who  called 
for  the  total  suppression  by  law  of  all  animal  experimentation;  second,  the 
physiological  enthusiasts,  few  in  number,  but  favorable  to  the  introduction 
of  the  Continental  irresponsibility,  and  eager  to  free  vivisection  from  every 
semblance  of  restraint ;  and  thirdly,  the  great  body  of  Englishmen  and  of  the 
medical  profession,  whose  views  we  have  seen  reflected  in  medical  journals 
of  the  day.  The  popular  attack  upon  all  animal  experimentation  became  so 
pressing,  that  for  a  time  the  entire  medical  profession  seemed  to  unite  in 
its  defense ;  and  editorial  space  once  filled  with  denunciation  of  vivisection 
in  France  was  now  given  over  to  criticism  of  the  anti-vivisectionists  of 
England.  Yet,  even  at  this  period,  there  appeared  no  repudiation  of  those 
humane  principles,  so  long  professed  by  English  medical  men.  One  lead- 
ing journal,  the  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  thus  suggests  that  very  over- 
sight of  vivisection  which  President  Eliot  of  Harvard  University  tells  us 
cannot  be  done : 

"Just  as  the  law  demands  that  a  teacher  of  anatomy  should  take  out  a  license,  and 
be  responsible  for  the  bodies  entrusted  to  him,  so  a  teacher  of  physiology  might  be 
required  to  take  out  some  such  license  as  regards  the  teaching  of  practical  physiology. 
We  have  never  been  of  those  who  advocate  the  wholesale  performance  of  experiments 
by  students,  especially  on  the  higher  animals,  if  they  are  of  such  a  kind  as  to  require 
any  degree  of  skill  for  their  performance.  When  the  medical  public  seemed  bitten  with 
what  was  called  "practical  physiology,"  many  were  ready  to  advocate  the  performance 
of  all  kinds  of  experiments  on  living  animals  by  uninstructed  students.  Against  this 
notion,  we  were  first  to  protest,  as  being  at  once  cruel  and  worse  than  useless ;  for  an 
experiment  performed  by  bungling  fingers  is  no  experiment  at  all,  but  wanton  cruelty." 

After  explaining  his  position  in  favor  of  scientific  research,  the  editor  refers  to  a 
recent  discussion  on  vivisection  in  London. 

"Dr.  Walker  declared  that  his  desire  was  not  to  stop  scientific  research,  but  the 
abuses  which  were  connected  with  it.  In  the  first  place  he  would  not  allow  vivisection 
to  be  practiced  by  incompetent  students.  This  was  nothing  but  wanton  and  unright- 
eous cruelty.  Therefore  he  would  oblige  each  vivisector  to  obtain  legal  permission 
from  competent  authority.  Another  abuse  related  to  operations  performed  merely  to 
demonstrate  physiological  phenomena  already  verified  and  established.  Again,  the 
number  of  animals  vivisected  was  shamefully  high.  Persons  unacquainted  with 
physiological  laboratories  could  form  no  idea  of  the  lavish  way  in  which  animals  were 
made  to  suffer  days  and  weeks  of  anguish  and  acute  pain.  If  the  people  knew  of 
these   sufferings,  they  would  insist  that  the  number   of   animals   annually  vivisected' 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY.  25 

should  be  limited ;  and  that  no  animal  rearing  its  young,  should  be  experimented  upon. 
Nor  should  it  be  allowable  to  operate  on  an  animal  more  than  once.  .  .  Lastly, 
every  licensed  vivisector  should  be  obliged  to  send  in  an  annual  return,  showing  the 
number  of  vivisections  performed,  and  the  scientific  results  attained  which  would  pre- 
vent repeated  operations  with  the  same  object.  Nothing  in  any  of  these  proposals, 
urged  Dr.  Walker,  could  interfere  with  the  progress  of  science ;  they  would  simply  stop 
the  abuses  which  existed."  * 

In  January,  1875,  we  find  the  London  Lancet  also  suggesting  legal 
supervision  and  restriction : 

"We  are  utterly  opposed  to  all  repetition  of  experiments  for  the  purpose  of  demon- 
strating established  doctrines.  .  .  .  We  believe  an  attempt  might  be  made  to 
institute  something  in  the  way  of  regulation  and  supervision.  It  would  not  be  diffi- 
cult, for  example,  to  impose  such  restrictions  on  the  practice  of  these  experiments  as 
would  effectually  guard  against  their  being  undertaken  by  any  but  skilled  persons, 
for  adequate  scientific  objects."  f 

A  month  later  the  Lancet  devotes  its  leading  editorial  to  a  discussion  of 
the  ethics  of  vivisection.  After  criticising  the  position  taken  by  the  anti- 
vivisectionists,  the  writer  says : 

"On  'the  other  side,  the  discussion  has  been  conducted  as  if  it  concerned  physio- 
logists alone,  who  were  to  be  a  law  unto  themselves  and  each  to  do  what  might  seem 
right  in  his  own  eyes ;  that  the  matter  was  one  into  which  outsiders  had  no  right 
whatever  to  intrude;  in  fact,  that  'whatever  is,  is  right,'  and  so  unquestionably  right 
as  to  stand  in  no  need  of  investigation  or  restriction.  We  have,  from  the  first,  striven 
to  take  a  middle  course,  not  because  it  was  safe,  but  because  it  seemed  to  us  the  sound 
and  true  one.  Without  disguising  the  difficulties,  we  have  nevertheless  expressed 
our  conviction  that  the  subject  was  one  about  which  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel  a 
sense  of  responsibility,  and  a  desire  to  ascertain  whether  the  line  between  necessary 
and  unnecessary  could  be  defined ;  and  whether  any  attempt  could  be  made  to  insti- 
tute something  in  the  way  of  regulation,  supervision  or  restriction,  so  as  to  secure 
that,  while  the  ends  of  science  were  not  defeated,  the  broad  principles  of  Humanity 
and  duty  to  the  lower  animals  were  observed.  Animals  have  their  rights  every  bit 
as  much  as  man  has  his.     .     .     ." 

Admitting  the  probable  necessity  of  some  repetition  of  experiments  in  research, 
the  writer  continues : 

"It  is  for  the  purposes  of  instruction,  however,  that  it  becomes  questionable, 
whether  and  to  what  extent  experiments  of  this  kind  should  be  performed.  A  chemi- 
cal lecturer  teaches  well,  in  proportion  to  the  clearness  with  which  he  can  demonstrate 
the  correctness  of  his  statements  by  experiment;  and  there  is  no  doubt  it  is  the  same 
with  a  lecturer  on  physiology.  Some  persons  seem  to  regard  the  advance  of  knowl- 
edge as  the  whole  duty  of  man,  and  they  would,  perhaps,  consider  experimentation  as 
justifiable  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  We  cannot  so  regard  it,  for  the  simple  and 
sufficient  reason   (as  it  seems  to  us)   that  the  element  of  Life  and  Sensibility  being 

♦Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  London  (Editorial),  June  27,  1874. 
t  The  Lancet,  London  (Editorial),  Jan.  2,  1875. 


26  THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION    CONTROVERSY. 

present  in  the  one  case  and  not  in  the  other,  carries  a  responsibility  with  it.  We  con- 
tend that  in  any  case  where  certain  phenomena  are  known  to  follow  a  given  experiment ; 
when  the  fact  has  been  established  by  the  separate  and  independent  observation  of  many 
different  persons,  a  lecturer  is  not  justified  in  resorting  to  it  for  the  purpose  of  mere 
demonstration  where  its  performance  involves  suffering  to  the  animal!'  * 

It  is  an  instructive  and  interesting  fact  that  one  of  the  first  steps  toward 
the  legal  regulation  of  vivisection  in  England  was  taken  by  scientific  men. 
The  Lancet  of  May  8,  1875,  contains  the  following  paragraph : 

"Some  eminent  naturalists  and  physiologists,  including  Mr.  Charles  Darwin,  Pro- 
fessor Huxley,  Dr.  Sharpey  and  others  have  been  in  communication  with  members  of 
both  houses  of  Parliament  to  arrange  terms  of  a  bill  which  would  prevent  any  unneces- 
sary cruelty  or  abuse  in  experiments  made  on  living  animals  for  purposes  of  scientific 
discovery.  It  is  understood  that  these  negotiations  have  been  successful  and  that  the 
Bill  is  likely  to  be  taken  charge  of  by  Lord  Cardwell  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
by  Dr.  Lyon  Playfair  in  the  House  of  Commons." 

A  week  later,  the  Lancet  gives  an  outline  of  the  proposed  Act: 

DR.    LYON    PLAYFAIR'S   VIVISECTION    BILL. 

"The  Bill  introduced  by  Dr.  Lyon  Playfair,  Mr.  Spencer  Walpole  and  Mr.  Evelyn 
Ashley  'To  Prevent  Abuse  and  Cruelty  in  Experiments  on  Animals,  made  for  the 
purpose  of  Scientific  Discovery'  has  been  printed.  It  proposes  to  enact  that  painful 
experiments  on  living  animals  for  scientific  purposes  shall  be  permissible  on  the  follow- 
ing conditions : — 

"That  the  animal  shall  first  have  been  made  insensible  by  the  administration  of 
anaesthetics  or  otherwise,  during  the  whole  course  of  such  experiment ;  and  that  if 
the  nature  of  the  experiment  be  such  as  to  seriously  injure  the  animal,  so  as  to 
cause  it  after  suffering,  the  animal  shall  be  killed  immediately  on  the  termination  of 
the  experiment. 

Experiments  without  the  use  of  anaesthetics  are  also  to  be  permissible  provided 
the  following  conditions  are  complied  with :  That  the  experiment  is  made  for  the 
purpose  of  new  scientific  discovery  and  for  no  other  purpose ;  and  that  insensibility 
cannot  be  produced  without  necessarily  frustrating  the  object  of  the  experiment;  and 
that  the  animal  should  not  be  subject  to  any  pain  which  is  not  necessary  for  the 
purpose  of  the  experiment ;  and  that  the  experiment  be  brought  to  an  end  as  soon 
as  practicable;  and  that  if  the  nature  of  the  experiment  be  such  as  to  seriously  injure 
the  animal  so  as  to  cause  it  after  suffering,  the  animal  shall  be  killed  immediately  on 
the  termination  of  the  experiment. 

That  a  register  of  all  experiments  made  without  the  use  of  anaesthetics  shall  be 
duly  kept,  and  be  returned  in  such  form  and  at  such  times  as  one  of  Her  Majesty's 
principal  Secretaries  of  State  may  direct. 

The  Secretary  of  State  is  to  be  empowered  to  grant  licenses  to  persons  provided 
with  certificates  signed  by  at  least  one  of  the  following  persons  :  the  President  of  the 
Royal  Society,  the  President  of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons  or  of  the  Colleges  of 
Physicians  in  London,  Edinburgh  or  Dublin,  and  also  by  a  recognized  professor  of 
physiology,  medicine  or  anatomy."f 

*The  London  Lancet,  Feb.  6,  1875. 

tThe  Lancet,  May  15,  1875.     It  is  evident,  however  from  Prof.  Huxle3r's  letters,  that  he  did  not  approve 
the  clause  of  this  bill  confining  vivisection  solely  to  original  research,  but  favored  also  painless  demonstrations. 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    VII'ISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 


27 


The  bill,  though  introduced  in  Parliament,  was  not  pressed.  Another, 
and  more  stringent  measure  for  the  regulation  of  vivisection  had  been  intro- 
duced a  few  days  earlier,  through  the  efforts  of  Miss  Frances  Power  Cobbe 
and  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury.  In  the  conflict  of  opposing  statements  and 
opinions,  the  Government  wisely  concluded  that  more  light  on  the  subject 
was  necessary,  and  a  Royal  Commission  was  appointed  to  investigate  and 
report. 

But  if  the  Continental  party  was  to  conquer  in  England,  its  members 
undoubtedly  felt  that  it  must  be  through  audacity  quite  as  much  as  by 
silence  and  secrecy.  At  the  annual  meeting  of  the  British  Medical  Asso- 
ciation, therefore,  Prof.  William  Rutherford  delivered  an  address,  wherein 
for  the  second  time  an  English  physiologist  openly  advocated  the  vivisec- 
tion of  animals  as  a  method  of  teaching  well-known  facts.  Commenting 
upon  this  address  the  editor  of  the  Lancet  remarks : 

"We  confess  that  we  think  Dr.  Rutherford  presses  his  principle  too  far  when  he 
argues  that, — teaching  by  demonstration  being  the  most  successful  method,- — we  are 
thereby  always  warranted  in  having  recourse  to  it.  Physiology  and  Chemistry  are  both 
experimental  sciences.  The  chemical  lecturer  can  have  no  hesitation  in  employing  any 
number  of  experiments,  or  repeating  them  indefinitely  to  illustrate  every  step  he  takes ; 
but  we  may  fairly  assume  that  the  physiologist  would  be  restrained  by  the  thought 
that  the  materials  with  which  he  has  to  deal  are  not  so  much  inert,  lifeless  matter,  but 
sentient,  living  things.  We  hold,  therefore,  that  it  would  be  both  unnecessary  and  cruel 
to  demonstrate  every  physiological  truth  by  experiment,  or  to  repeat  indefinitely  the 
same  experiment,  simply  because  by  such  demonstrations  the  lecturer  could  make  his 
teaching  more  definite,  precise  and  valuable."  * 

Again,  somewhat  later,  the  same  journal  brings  into  prominence  one  of 
the  greatest  difficulties  attending  all  discussion  of  vivisection, — the  lack  of 
agreement  upon  the  meaning  of  words : 

"It  is  extremely  difficult  to  get  at  the  exact  meaning  of  the  terms  used.  The 
physiologist  would  be  ready  to  declare  his  utter  abhorrence  of  all  "cruelty,"  but  then 
he  would  hare  his  own  definition  of  the  word.  We  hope  Sir  William  Thompson  was 
not  justified  in  stating  that  revolting  cruelties  are  sometimes  practiced  in  this  country, 
in  the  name  of  Vivisection,  although  we  may  concur  with  him  in  reprehending  the  per- 
formance of  experiments  on  animals  in  illustration  of  truths  already  ascertained.  .  .  . 
When  the  Cardinal  (Manning)  laid  it  down  as  the  expression  of  a  great  moral  obliga- 
tion that  we  had  no  right  to  inflict  needless  pain,  he  begged  the  whole  question.  By 
all  means,  lay  down  and  enforce  any  restriction  that  will  prevent  the  infliction  of 
needless  pain."  f 

We  see  how  valueless,  therefore,  is  the  assertion,  so  frequently  made, 
in  this  country,  that  "no  needless  pain  is  ever  inflicted."  The  physiologist 
has  his  own  interpretation  of  the  word. 

*  The  Lancet,  London  (Editorial),  Aug.  21,  1875. 
tThe  Lancet,  London  (Editorial),  March  25,  1S76. 


28  THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

The  testimony  given  before  the  Royal  Commission  was  of  the  utmost 
value.  Leading  members  of  the  medical  profession,  such  as  Sir  Thomas 
Watson,  physician  to  the  Queen,  and  Sir  William  Fergusson,  surgeon  to  the 
Queen,  gave  evidence  against  the  unrestricted  practice  of  animal  experimen- 
tation. Physiologists  after  the  Continental  school  stated  their  side  of  the 
controversy,  usually,  with  significant  caution,  but  one  of  them,  Dr.  Emanuel 
Klein,  with  an  honest  frankness  of  confession  that  astounded  his  friends,  and 
made  him  forever  famous  in  the  history  of  the  vivisection-controversy.  It 
is  hardly  accurate  to  say  that  no  cruelty  was  uncovered  by  the  Royal  Com- 
mission. Everything  depends  on  the  meaning  of  words ;  but  the  evidence 
of  Dr.  Klein,  who  to-day  is  one  of  the  most  noted  of  English  physiologists, 
as  to  his  own  personal  practices  in  vivisection,  was  quite  sufficient  to 
justify  the  legislation  that  ensued.*  How  seriously  Dr.  Klein's  evidence 
was  regarded  at  the  time,  is  clearly  shown  in  an  extract  from  a  confidential 
letter  of  Prof.  Huxley  to  Mr.  Darwin,  dated  Oct.  30,  1875 : 

"This  Commission  is  playing  the  deuce  with  me.  I  have  felt  it  my  duty  to  act 
as  counsel  for  Science,  and  was  well  satisfied  with  the  way  things  are  going.     But  on 

Thursday,  when  I  was  absent,  ■ — — ■  was  examined ;   and  if  what  I  hear  is  a  correct 

account  of  the  evidence  he  gave,  I  may  as  well  throw  up  my  brief.  I  am  told  he  openly 
professed  the  most  entire  indifference  to  animal  suffering,  and  he  only  gave  anaesthetics 
to  keep  the  animals  quiet ! 

I  declare  to  you,  I  did  not  believe  the  man  lived,  who  was  such  an  unmitigated, 
cynical  brute  as  to  profess  and  act  upon  such  principles ;  and  I  would  willingly  agree 
to  any  law  that  would  send  him  to  the  treadmill. 

The  impression  his  evidence  made  on  Cardwell  and  Foster  is  profound;    and  I  am 
powerless  (even  if  I  desire,  which  I  have  not),  to  combat  it."  f 

The  result  of  the  Commission's  report  was  the  introduction  by  the 
Government  of  a  bill  placing  animal  experimentation  in  Great  Britain 
under  legal  supervision  and  control.  As  first  drawn  up,  it  appears  to  have 
been  regarded  by  the  medical  profession  as  unduly  stringent  and  unfair. 
Protests  were  made ;  amendments  of  certain  of  its  provisions  were  requested ; 
concessions  were  granted ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  Parliamentary  session, 
Aug.  15,  1876,  the  practice  of  vivisection, — like  the  study  of  human  anatomy 
by  dissection, — came  under  the  supervision  of  English  law. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  those  who  had  vehemently  opposed  the  Act, 
were  able  to  approve  it  when  once  the  law  was  in  operation,  and  criticism 

*  For  an  extract  from  Dr.  Klein's  testimony,  see  page  7. 

+  Huxley's  Life  and  Letters,  Vol.  I,  p.  473.  This  characterization  of  Dr.  Klein  seems  by  no  means  fair, 
and  probably,  it  would  have  been  so  regarded  by  the  writer  in  calmer  moments.  Is  indignation  chiefly 
directed  to  the  "indifference  to  animal  suffering,"  or  to  the  "  open  profession"  of  the  feeling?  For  men, 
perfectly  familiar  with  Continental  indifference,  to  condemn  with  holy  horror  a  young  physiologist  because 
he   "openly  professes"  the  generally  prevalent  sentiment  of  his  class,  is  mightily  suggestive. 


THE   RISE    OF    THE    VIVISECTION    CONTROVERSY. 


29 


could  no  longer  serve  any  purpose  of  delay.     The  British  Medical  Journal 
of  Aug.  19,  1876,  announcing  to  its  readers  the  passage  of  the  bill,  says : 

"Taking  the  measure  altogether,  we  think  the  profession  may  be  congratulated  on 
its  having  passed.  ...  So  far,  the  Act  facilitates  the  prosecution  of  science  by  com- 
petent persons,  while  it  protects  animals  from  the  cruelty  which  might  be  inflicted  by 
ignorant  and  unskillful  hands.  The  act  is  a  great  step  in  advance,  toward  promoting 
kindness  to  animals  generally.     .    .    ." 

The  Medical  Times  and  Gazette  also  regained  its  equanimity,  and  an 
editorial  referring  to  the  Act  admits  that  "the  Profession  may  regard  it 
without  much  dissatisfaction."*     There  are  even  advantages  to  be  discerned: 

"It  gives  scientific  inquirers  the  protection  of  the  law ;  it  protects  animals  from 
cruelties  which  might  be  inflicted  by  unscientific  and  unskilled  persons,  and  it  satisfies 
to  a  great  extent  a  demand  made  by  a  hypersensitive    .     .     .    portion  of  the  public." 

Nor  did  further  experience  with  the  working  of  the  Act  appear  greatly 
to  disturb  this  favorable  impression.  For  instance,  after  the  law  had  been 
in  operation  nearly  three  years,  the  London  Lancet  editorially  remarked: 

"There  is  no  reason  to  regret  the  Act  of  1876  which  limits  vivisection,  except  on 
the  ground  that  it  places  the  interests  of  science  at  the  arbitration  of  a  lay  authority. 
.     .     .    Meanwhile,  the  Act  works  well,  and  fulfils  its  purpose."  f 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  the  law  has  always  been  regarded 
with  marked  disfavor  by  the  extreme  vivisectionists  of  Great  Britain. 
They  had  planned,  as  we  can  see,  to  introduce  in  the  United  Kingdom  the 
freedom  of  vivisection  which  obtained  on  the  Continent.  They  had  failed ; 
and  instead  of  liberty  to  imitate  Bernard,  Magendie  and  Brown-Sequard, 
they  saw  between  them  and  the  absolute  power  they  had  craved  and  dreamed 
of  obtaining, — the  majesty  of  English  law.  Among  American  representa- 
tives of  the  same  school, — the  strenuous  opponents  of  all  legal  supervis- 
ion,— it  has  been  the  fashion  on  every  possible  occasion  to  cast  discredit 
upon  this  Act.  For  obvious  reasons,  they  have  sought  to  represent  it  to  the 
American  public  as  having  proven  a  serious  detriment  to  medical  science, 
and  an  obstruction  to  medical  advancement.  The  idea  is  absurd ;  English 
physicians  and  surgeons  are  as  well  educated  and  equipped  in  every  respect 
as  the  graduates  from  American  schools ;  nor  has  the  freedom  of  unlimited 
vivisection  in  all  the  laboratories  of  the  United  States  during  the  past  thirty 
years,  yet  resulted  in  a  single  discovery  of  generally  admitted  value  in  the 
treatment  of  disease. 

A  typical  instance  of  the  loose  and  inaccurate  statements  frequently  put 
forth  by  men  who  oppose  any  regulation  of  vivisection,  may  be  found  in 

*  December  30,  1876. 

t  The  Lancet,  July  19,  1879. 


30  THE   RISE    OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

the  letter  recently  addressed  by  Dr.  W.  W.  Keen  to  Senator  Gallinger,  and 
telegraphed  to  the  newspaper  press  throughout  the  United  States.  Dr.  Keen 
says  therein : 

"If  the  laws  which  j^ou  and  your  friends  advocate  were  in  force,  the  conditions  for 
scientific  investigation  in  medicine  in  this  country  would  be  quite  as  deplorable  as  those 
in  England.  For  example,  when  Lord  Lister,  who  has  revolutionized  modern  surgery, 
largely  as  a  result  of  such  experiments,  wished  to  discover  possibly  some  still  better 
way  of  operating  by  further  experiments,  he  was  obliged  to  go  to  Toulouse  to  carry 
them  out,  as  the  vexatious  restrictions  of  the  law  in  England  practically  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  continue  there  these  preeminently  humane  experiments."* 

This  statement  was  sent  broadcast  over  the  country.  No  authority  is 
given ;  it  rests  solely  upon  the  word  of  Dr.  Keen.  We  cannot  suspect  him 
of  intentional  misstatement;  and  yet  the  story  is  wholly  untrue  so  far  as 
it  refers  to  the  operation  of  the  law.  It  is  not  true  that  Lord  Lister  was 
compelled  to  go  out  of  England  to  perform  the  experiments  in  question.  He, 
himself,  entertained  no  doubt  but  that  he  might  have  obtained  a  license  to 
do  them  in  England.  But  they  had  to  be  on  large  animals ;  the  Veterinary 
College  in  which  he  might  have  had  opportunity  given  him  for  the  investiga- 
tions, was  at  some  distance  from  his  residence,  and  the  journey  to  Toulouse 
was  merely  a  matter  of  convenience.  Who  could  have  been  Dr.  Keen's 
authority  for  this  singular  fiction?  Certainly,  it  was  not  Lord  Lister,  for  he 
has  never  given  any  account  of  the  circumstance  for  publication. 

Dr.  Keen  continues : 

"Again,  when  Sir  T.  Lauder  Brunton,  in  London,  started  a  series  of  experiments 
on  animals  to  discover  an  antidote  for  the  cobra  and  other  snake  poisons  of  India, 
where  every  year  20,000  human  lives  are  sacrificed  by  snake  bites,  these  beneficent 
researches  were  stopped  by  the  stringent  British  laws  to  protect  animals.  Meanwhile, 
half  a  million  of  human  beings  have  hopelessly  perished."     (Italics  ours.) 

Is  it  possible  that  Dr.  Keen  can  imagine  this  paragraph  a  true  and  precise 
statement  of  the  facts?  Did  he  not  know  that  Dr.  Brunton  "started  a 
series  of  experiments"  with  snake-poison,  years  before  the  passage  of  the 
Act  of  1876,  regulating  vivisections  ;y  and  that  although  these  investigations 
were  interrupted  for  a  year  or  two  (owing  to  doubts  as  to  the  construction 
of  the  law  regarding  anaesthetics),  the  experiments  in  question  were  resumed 
by  Dr.  Brunton  in  1878, — fully  twenty-five  years  ago?  Surely  Dr.  Keen 
cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  Dr.  Brunton  contributed  accounts  of  these 

♦Philadelphia  Medical  Journal,  Dec.  13,  1902,  p.  903. 

t  See  the  Proceedings  of  the  Royal  Society,  Feb.  1875,  for  Dr.  Brunton's  account  of  experiments  made  in 
1874,  with  references  to  earlier  investigations. 


THE   RISE   OF    THE    VIVISECTION    CONTROVERSY 


31 


later  researches  with  snake-poison  both  to  the  British  Medical  Journal  and 
to  The  Royal  Society?*  To  put  forth  the  suggestion  that  "stringent  British 
laws  to  protect  animals"  had  made  certain  investigations  legally  impossible, 
when — on  the  contrary, — these  very  experiments  have  been  carried  on  under 
its  sanction,  and  in  accord  with  its  provisions  for  a  quarter  of  a  century, — 
really,  is  this  scientific  accuracy?  Was  not  Dr.  Keen  aware  of  the  fact 
that  experiments  with  snake-poison  were  by  no  means  a  novel  procedure ; 
that  they  have  been  carried  on  by  a  host  of  other  experimenters, — by  Fayrer 
of  Calcutta,  by  Vulpian  of  Paris,  by  Halford  of  Australia,  by  Lacerda  of 
South  America,  by  Martin,  Sewell,  Muella,  Wall,  Wolfenden,  Foster, — 
and  more  especially  by  his  friend  Dr.  S.  Weir  Mitchell  of  Philadelphia,  whose 
investigations  of  this  kind  began  over  forty  years  ago?f  For  the  purpose  of 
exciting  prejudice  against  the  legal  regulation  of  vivisection  in  this  country, 
was  it  right  for  Dr.  Keen  to  give  forth  the  impression  to  the  American  public, 
that  in  India,  "half  a  million  of  human  beings  have  hopelessly  perished," 
just  because  twenty-five  years  ago,  Dr.  Brunton's  experiments  were  inter- 
rupted for  a  short  time,  although  they  have  been  carried  on,  at  his  pleasure, 
ever  since  ?  And  if  a  perfect  antidote  to  the  venom  of  serpents  in  India  and 
elsewhere  is  within  reach,  why  did  not  Weir  Mitchell  continue  his  experi- 
ments till  such  antidote  were  found?  There  was  no  restrictive  law  in  his 
way.  If  somebody  were  to  charge  that  brilliant  romance-writer  with  cruel 
indifference  to  human  suffering,  because  he  discontinued  his  experiments 
with  snake-poison  for  the  pursuit  of  literary  eminence,  with  the  result  that 
"meanwhile,  half  a  million  of  human  beings  have  hopelessly  perished" — 
it  would  be  quite  as  sensible  and  pertinent  as  Dr.  Keen's  remark  to  the  same 
effect,  made  to  excite  American  prejudice  against  the  English  law. 

But  it  was  not  only  among  the  advocates  of  Continental  freedom  that  the 
English  law  found  determined  enemies ;  by  the  anti-vivisection  party  in 
Great  Britain  the  passage  of  the  bill  was  viewed  with  distrust,  and  now  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  these  opponents  have  strenuously  and 
consistently  worked  for  its  amendment  or  repeal.  Their  aim  has  not  been 
realized ;  and  yet  by  fixing  public  attention  upon  its  defects, — upon  the  lax 
and  inadequate  supervision  of  laboratories,  for  example,  or  the  ease  with 
which  the  legal  requirements  concerning  use  of  anaesthetics  may  be  evaded 
by  unscrupulous  men, — they  have  performed  a  service  of  great  value  in 
the  promotion  of  reform.  No  one  claims  that  the  bill  is  a  perfect  measure. 
Possibly,  along  certain  lines,  and  in  non-essential  details,  it  might,  without 

*  See  British  Medical  Journal  of  Jan.  3,  1891  ;  Proceedings  0/  The  Royal  Society,  1878,  page  465. 

tSee  Smithsonian  Contributions,  i860,  p.  qj,  for  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell's  "Researches  on  the  Venom  of  the 
Rattlesnake;"  and  The  New  York  Medical  Journal  of  Jan.,  1868,  and  The  American  Journal  0/ the  Medical 
Sciences  for  April,  1870,  for  account  of  similar  experiments. 


32  THE   RISE    OF    THE    VIVISECTION   CONTROVERSY. 

detriment,  be  more  liberally  construed  in  the  interests  of  science ;  on  the 
other  hand,  it  seems  certain  that  in  other  directions,  the  law  needs  far  more 
careful  administration  in  the  interests  of  the  sentient  beings  it  aims  to  protect. 
But  whatever  be  its  defects,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  Act  of  1876, 
legally  regulating  the  practice  of  vivisection,  constitutes  a  vast  improvement 
upon  the  unbridled  license  which  elsewhere  prevails  in  Europe  and  America ; 
that  it  acts  as  a  check  to  the  indifferent  and  the  cruel,  that  it  stands  on  the 
statute-book,  a  monument  to  the  humane  sentiment  of  the  English  people. 
It  is  true  that  the  advocates  of  Continental  vivisection  have  gained  ground 
during  the  past  quarter  of  a  century.  The  Continental  ideal  of  scientific 
irresponsibility  is  probably  held  to-day,  by  a  large  majority  of  the  younger 
members  of  the  present  generation  of  scientific  teachers.  Is  it,  then,  to  be 
the  final  conclusion  of  the  English-speaking  world?  We  do  not  believe  it. 
A  change  will  come.  To  the  medical  profession,  humanity  owes  the  first 
exposure  of  the  horrors  of  animal  vivisection,  the  first  protest  against  their 
atrocity.  If  the  old  ideals  seem  now,  to  be  forgotten,  we  know  that  they  are 
not  dead ;  and  we  believe  that  some  day  they  will  awaken  to  inspire  the 
world. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


Dr.  Keen's  misstatement  regarding  the  English  law  regulating  vivisection  is 
quite  inexcusable  in  a  scientific  man.  At  the  cost  of  a  postage  stamp,  he  might 
have  learned  that  the  English  law,  to  which  he  so  coolly  charges  the  death  of  "half 
a  million  human  beings,"  does  not  prohibit  the  researches  to  which  he  alludes.  The 
following  reply  to  a  note  of  inquiry  addressed  to  the  Home  Secretary  places  the  ques- 
tion beyond  dispute. 

Secretary  of  State, 
Home  Department. 

Whitehall,   (London,) 

15th  June,  1903. 
Sir: — With  reference  to  your  letter  of  the  14th  ultimo,  enquiring  whether  a  British 
subject,  holding  a  license  to  make  experiments  upon  living  animals  in  England,  can 
obtain  a  certificate  permitting  him  to  inoculate  a  number  of  animals  with  the  venom 
of  the  cobra  and  of  other  serpents  of  India,  and  immediately  thereafter,  at  varying 
periods,  to  administer  certain  antidotes,  with  a  view  of  discovering  something  that 
may  be  adapted  to  human  beings  suffering  from  snake-bite,  I  am  directed  by  the 
Secretary  of  State  to  inform  you  that  the  reply  is  in  the  affirmative. 

I  am, 

Sir, 

Your  obedient  Servant, 

Henry  Cunyngham. 


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